The Skyboom
by D. M. Domini
Summary: Journeyman Robinton and Bronzerider F'lon didn't intend to visit the 9th Pass. But once there, they have to find a way to get back to their proper time--before people start questioning why the pasts of two highly influential men are being tampered with.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** The world and characters in this story come from the Dragonriders of Pern ® series by Anne McCaffrey. I do not own them, I am merely playing with fictional super-duper cool Pernese Action Figures!

**Author's Note:** This is an Alternate Universe, with a rather wild premise. This is also a re-write of the original story I put up on this site; the previous version is left for history's sake, but will no longer be updated. Hopefully this version will capture the characters in a truer-to-canon form.

**The Skyboom**

**Chapter One**

There had to be something more miserable than emerging from _between_ into a pouring thunderstorm whilst still treading the line between drunk and sober after one of the last, wild Gathers of the season, but Robinton, for the life of him, couldn't think of what it might be.

"You know," Robinton yelled in the bronze dragonrider's ear over the chaos of the storm around them, "If we had come out of _between_ at the bottom of a lake, we probably would be a bit drier right now!" He blew out a strand of wet hair that had made its way into his mouth immediately upon opening it, but it didn't do much good; the wind was whipping hair and water every which way, including _up_.

F'lon giggled, or at least that's how Robinton interpreted the movements of the other man's shoulders in front of him. Then F'lon threw back his head and laughed, loudly enough that it could be heard over the blinding _SNAP!_ of a lightening bolt somewhere to the lower left of them that briefly illuminated the cloud cover they were descending through.

Well. That _was_ a bit of a funny image. The lake being less wet and all. Or so Robinton thought. Maybe it wasn't funny at all. To, you know, people who couldn't laugh. Were there people born who couldn't laugh? Maybe there were. He suspected he had met some of them before. That would be terrible, to not be able to laugh. He felt his own giggle welling up. He tried to suppress it, since he _had_ already made a bit of an embarrassment about himself tonight, when he mistakenly let his guard down and sung the _alternate_ lyrics for that old Holder's tune, and had been thrown out of the Harper tent by a furious Master-level Harper, but F'lon's laughter was insidious, and Robinton found himself giggling more a moment later, and after a few moments of serious contemplation of things (or perhaps not too serious given any half thought out idea that sifted through his mind made him giggle harder) he decided that he was still well and truly drunk.

Damned if he was going to show it, though. "Are we there yet?" Robinton said in F'lon's ear. The dragonrider immediately clouted him in the leg for _that_ one, and Robinton laughed some more, even though his leg ached from the blow. "I want to go home," he whined, imitating an old uncle in a wheezy tone. "I don't want to get sopping wet in a thunderstorm." F'lon hit him again, or tried to; Robinton fended it off easily, which perhaps spoke volumes of how not-sober the physically-fit dragonrider was. Robinton was typically on the losing side of these sorts of fracas. But apparently not when they were both drunk.

Poor Simanith was the only one who wasn't drunk right now.

The bronze dragon, who was working his wings furiously against the wind and rain, didn't seem too put out by it however; thunder clapped, and he roared furiously, challengingly at it, or that's how Robinton interpreted the sound, being as he didn't actually know what the great dragon was thinking like F'lon did. The dragon's eyes glowed a vivid green-blue that sometimes flashed to orange when he roared, his throat and chest expanding beneath them with the bellow. A little messy storm was nothing for a great bronze dragon of Pern! Blow all you want, flash and clash and growl all you want, the bronze dragon will _conquer!_

Robinton let out a cheer at these thoughts, which F'lon matched for the bloody good fun of it, because, after all, the dragon was their only way down to the safe and possibly drier ground, and Robinton very much wanted Simanith to conquer anything he felt needed to be conquered on the way down there.

"Why are we cheering?" F'lon said a few moments later, twisting around so he could speak in Robinton's ear.

"Because we're home? Well, _my_ home? _Are_ we there yet?" The night and the cloud cover and the storm all conspired against Robinton being able to spot the familiar form of the Harper Hall and nearby Fort Hold below them.

"We're in Ista," F'lon said, a wicked grin on his lips. Robinton couldn't see his eyes through the rain-spattered goggles the dragonrider wore, but they probably had an equally evil glint in them.

"What?! _Why_?" Robinton asked. "You didn't pop us into a thunderstorm on _purpose_, did you? Because if you did, you and I will have to have _words_. Once I'm less drunk and I'm able to pronounce the more elaborate words without looking like a drunken fool. I'm soaking wet here! I'm going to catch my death!"

"Poor baby, you're wet through to the bone! Silly little Harper, where's your riding leathers? Did you forget them again?" F'lon asked in baby talk.

Robinton blinked, and realized that he indeed was only wearing his every day clothes. It explained why he'd soaked through so quickly. "You..." he paused to think of a good and vile description for the dragonrider, and came up blank. So he forged on. "You didn't check on your passenger before taking off! What sort of dragonrider _are_ you?" he accused, putting the blame squarely on his friend's shoulders instead of his own.

"Not going to forget _next_ time, are you?" F'lon asked with an evil laugh.

"_I'm_ not a dragonrider," Robinton grumbled.

"You ride on a dragon more often than some weyrbred folk," F'lon said. "Time you learned an object lesson about how you need to dress for flying. The Weyrleader tanned my hide for it last time he saw it, you know?"

Robinton hadn't known about that, and felt more contrite. But not _much_ more. "Unlike imbeciles like you, I _am_ capable of learning things without hands-on experience," Robinton growled. "You could have _told_ me. You know, 'Hey, Robinton, we're not taking off until you find your leathers' or the like."

"I'm lazy. I only wanted to tell you once. Think you're going to ever forget again?" he asked pointedly.

Robinton had to admit he'd probably remember this one. "Fine, fine," he said in F'lon's ear. "Can we head home now?" Another lightening bolt crackled and flashed, much closer and louder than the ones before, and Robinton began to feel alarmed despite the drunken relaxation of his body. "Really, I may only be a Harper, but riding in a thunderstorm seems somewhat dangerous..." And, well, he didn't have leathers. Although, twisting around to check, he saw that his gitar was safely stowed away, and he knew that that case would stand up to the elements or there was a certain case-maker that would see the sharper side of his tongue.

_CRACK!_

Robinton started to feel distinctly nervous; perhaps the wine was wearing off. Or maybe he just wanted to stay alive, even if it was a wet and miserable alive. "F'lon...that seemed perilously close to us."

"Don't worry!" F'lon said. "It's impossible for lightening to hit a drag--"

_ka-BOOM!_

Robinton jumped out of his skin and made a choked sound as the world around them lit up in blinding white, and the stench of burning hair and hide filled his nostrils, accompanied by the screech of breaking, splintering wood...then suddenly, like an after-image, everything was replaced with stark, black, nothingness, cold, and without sound, shape, or form...

_Between._

They were in _between_, they had to be. The world hadn't just ended around them. It took a few moments for Robinton to gather his scattered wits--despite being alone in this universe with only his own wits for company, they were surprisingly elusive and had skittered off in twenty directions. He hurried to catch up with events. _Six,_ he thought, after a few moments. It had been six seconds since they entered between.

_Seven._ The word in his mind held the sonorous beat of one of the large, basso message drums from the drum towers.

_Eight._

_Nine._ Wait, nine? There shouldn't be a nine when going through _between, _Robinton knew. Everyone knew that, it was in the most basic of teaching songs. It was a cold, hard number that people going through _between_ for the first time could hang on to. Maybe he was counting fast, panic trying to gnaw open his nerves, adrenaline burning away the alcohol in his veins?

_Ten - one thousand,_ Robinton thought, trying to time his counting right. He could keep a regular beat. Although he'd never tried through the center of a thunderstorm while drunk and scared out of his wits, though...

_Eleven--no, twelve - one thousand._ That last thought had been long. _Could_ a thought be overly-long? A part of him that was still alcohol-infused, and prone to believing that frivolous things were deep and profound, wondered.

_Thirteen - one thousand_...and, light, heavenly sunshine, warm against wet, _between_-frigid skin, raising steam from them like dawn on a dewy pasture.

Actually, part of the steam was smoke from F'lon's hair being on fire, where it poked out of the hole in his head gear. F'lon seemed stunned, so Robinton clumsily dragged F'lon's goggles and helmet off, the buckles unfamiliar to his fingers and smothered the flame with his _bare hands_.

Something which he'd shove in F'lon's face once it was assured that they'd all stay alive.

Surprisingly, the fire didn't really burn his palms (perhaps it was already out and merely smoldering), and F'lon's gloved fingers were trying to poke him in the eye as he flailed behind his head, no clue as to why Robinton had taken off his headgear. Robinton slapped them away. "Help Simanith, we're listing," he snapped at the disoriented bronze rider, who seemed to focus at the sound of his dragon's name. A good thing, considering Robinton could see a worrying dark stain on the dragon's head. A dragon's hide was soft, but thick, so he must have done a number on himself when he thrashed into that sky broom, splintering it in two, to be bleeding so much ichor. They would need each other to get them to the ground safely.

Most of the land below was covered in heavy greenery, the like of which Robinton had never seen before. Of course, he wasn't a dragonrider so perhaps it was common in other parts of the world. But he couldn't think offhand of any known land quite like this one, with thick forests--nay, jungles all over. Were they still in Ista?

Luckily he could see a coast line, off to his left, and made note of it in F'lon's ear. F'lon nodded, then shuddered, and Simanith tilted a bit drunkenly towards it.

Robinton would have liked to land on the beach, but perhaps that wasn't possible right now, as Simanith dropped into the ocean like a meteor, soaking them all and making giant waves explode out from under him. At least the water wasn't cold.

They bobbed in the warm ocean waves for a while, all of them taking inventory of their various knocks and bruises, with two of the three also shaking off the last drunken effects in their systems, and Robinton noted F'lon's left boot was smoking, and pointed it out.

"Yeah, I think lightening hit me," F'lon said slightly slurringly, wiggling his toes through the smoking toe. The toes were a little pink, but otherwise unharmed. He seemed bemused to see them. Robinton just felt disturbed at how close to disaster they'd come.

"Lightening _did_ hit you," Robinton confirmed.

Simanith flapped his wings a bit against the water, and started paddling his way towards shore.

"But!" F'lon said, pointing one finger at the sky triumphantly. "It didn't hit my dragon!"

Robinton rolled his eyes, and tried not to feel vaguely seasick as the great bronze dragon splashed them forwards towards dry land.

"Ugh, my head feels like Simanith is sitting on it," F'lon groaned once Simanith had crawled them up onto the beach and mostly out of the water. He undid the belt straps fastening him to his dragon's harness, and slid down the side of his dragon's neck, looking disconcertingly like a fetus some bovine dam had just given birth to, sliding to the sandy ground.

Robinton blinked in surprise at his own chain of thoughts, and concluded he was still drunk, despite the fine tremors that manifested through his body as an aftershock to their recent events.

F'lon laughed then, almost as if he'd seen the strange mental image Robinton had had flit through his head. "No, I know you wouldn't, dearheart," he said.

Robinton tried to relax. If F'lon was joking around with his dragon after this, surely both dragon and rider were okay. The stain on Simanith's head worried him, though, and he eased himself over a neck ridge to sit in F'lon's former position so he could reach the Healing kit that every rider had attached to their dragon's harness as a matter of course. He quickly undid the snaps, then nudged F'lon in the shoulder with his foot to get his attention. "Here. Simanith's bleeding."

The dragonrider's eyes widened. "You're bleeding? Why didn't you tell me!" F'lon demanded, snatching the kit from Robinton. "I asked if you were alright! Yes, you _are_. No it's not okay. Above your eye. Move your head here, I want to take a look at this..."

"We hit a tree before we went _between_," Robinton said. "Let's not do this again."

F'lon glanced up at him, and looked embarrassed and apologetic, so Robinton bit his tongue on the stronger words that wanted to fly out; Simanith had gotten hurt, and that was likely going to cement this adventure in the man's mind as firmly as Robinton's cold, wet soaking was going to ensure he never forgot his riding gear again. So instead, Robinton shivered, and maneuvered to slide down the other side of the dragon's neck so he wouldn't land on F'lon.

His clothes were soaked with water, most of it still chill, so Robinton took off his boots and socks, and, finding the sand pleasantly warm between his long toes, proceeded to strip down to his smalls, laying his garments on the sandy beach so that they could bake dry. Then he rounded Simanith's head, and helped F'lon out of his riding gear while the dragonrider looked at his dragon's wounds, and got the small jar of numbweed out, along with some bandages. F'lon was muttering things to himself and to his dragon, and Robinton studied the man's head again as F'lon slathered numbweed into the dragon's wound with a small brush, and decided that, to his inexpert eyes, F'lon would live. Robinton rescued the brush from F'lon once he was finished using it on Simanith, rinsed it clean in the sea, and then had F'lon hold still while he numbed and wrapped a quick bandage around the man's head while F'lon was too distracted by his dragon to protest much.

"Where are we?" Robinton asked sometime later, as he sat on the sand, pensively wondering if he should sprawl out and sun himself like Simanith. He was cold from his dousing, but he wasn't sure he wanted the fine sand lodged in dubious spots of his anatomy later on, either.

"I just got hit by lightening. How would I know where we are?" F'lon said.

"Somehow, that response does nothing for me," Robinton said drolly. "Are you sure you don't want me to teach you a little something about the proper word choices to use in emergency situations? It might save you from a lynch mob in the future, assuming that you actually _make_ it to Weyrleader, like you plan to."

"Emergency? Bah!" F'lon said. "So I don't know where we are. My dragon does, and my dragon can get us home. There's no emergency here. Let's just...wait until we're not looking so bedraggled. If I bring you home _this_ way, your mother will kill me and use my guts for her gitar."

"Actually using guts for strings isn't all that common these days," Robinton said mildly. "We prefer steel."

"I'm not taking the chance she'll decide to go old-fashioned on me," F'lon said with a grin. Then his grin faded. "My head feels like _two_ Simaniths are sitting on it. What about you?" he asked. Then he laughed, and shot a look at Simanith. "The difference there is that Rob and I are a _lot_ lighter when we sit on you."

Robinton decided to brave the sand, and sprawled, so that he could dry out and warm up on the beach along with his clothing. "Wherries will soon be sending messages to the nearest drumtower using my skull."

"Will soon be?"

"It's not a full blown headache yet. I plan to be fast asleep before then." And Robinton shaded his face with his arm and closed his eyes.

"You know, that sounds like a very good idea. I'm glad you thought of it."

"Oh? You're giving me credit for my work? For once?" Robinton peered out from under his arm.

"If my brain thinks its actually doing any work, the Simaniths sitting on me might multiply to three. Keep the credit; it's on me." And with a sigh, F'lon sprawled out on his stomach next to Robinton, using his jacket as a pillow.

Robinton chuckled, and shaded his eyes again. Fueled by too much alcohol and a long day, they were asleep without too much delay.

#

The dusk air was cooling off when they awoke and pulled on their clothes again, although it was not quite cool enough to make Robinton stop sweating in the unseasonable heat. But it wasn't as if they were going to fly straight or anything, and he preferred the heat to the cold, so Robinton endured it without comment and made sure his gitar was stowed away properly. It was always a worry during travel a-dragonback that the wood would crack when suddenly exposed to _between_. It happened to the best of instruments.

F'lon and Simanith did not play any games with them this time when taking off, and they flew upwards until they were at a distance acceptable for going _between_ from. Then they hovered, and F'lon reached down to pat Simanith's neck before the cold of _between_ enveloped them.

_One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand,_ Robinton chanted to himself, determined to keep the beat this time. And apparently he did; at eight one-thousand, the world appeared around them again, and a few specks of light below from glows and fires marked out where Ford Hold and the Harper Hall lie below.

Simanith began to drop, headed for the Harper Hall courtyard, but then changed direction suddenly and made a low noise in his throat. Robinton saw F'lon pat the bronze's neck comfortingly again, and they were set down in front of the great front doors of the Hall a few moments later, stirring a small cloud of up from the dragon's back-winging.

The night was cooler here, verging on too cold, but again Robinton disregarded it, since he would be inside soon anyway. He dismounted Simanith, caught the gitar after F'lon twisted around and unhooked it and carefully held it down for him, and then, with a flourishing bow, thanked the great bronze and his rider for today's adventure. Towards the bronze he was entirely sincere, since the dragon had been merely going along with his rider's plans, but there were notes of both amusement and sarcasm towards the bronzerider.

F'lon looked appropriately embarrassed, as far as Robinton could tell in the dark, but bid him good night.

Robinton quickly strode away, gitar in arms, to a distance suitable for watching the pair leave, and gazed after them until either the darkness or _between_ swallowed them up again. Then he sighed, and turned back to the hall. His mother would laugh herself sick at this particular mis-adventure. After yelling at him for getting drunk enough to do stupid things like leaving his riding gear behind at Benden Hold.

Robinton climbed the stairs to the hall, ducked in the partially open front door, and nodded to the apprentice on duty, whom he didn't recognize. Then he paused, feeling as if he were making a great error. But for the life of him, he couldn't put his finger on it. He glanced at the apprentice again, wondering if he'd promised the boy something or other, or knew him or maybe his kin from somewhere, but the boy was tiredly studying a vocal score that Robinton knew was a hideous little piece of music, although it was effective for some types of vocalists for demonstrating a certain voice technique.

But the sense of...malcontent...had nothing to do with the boy. Robinton walked out of the main corridor, headed for his mother's quarters, but the moment he turned out of the main hallway, he stopped again. There was something _wrong _here. Aside from the decor--Master Gennell was notorious for getting tired of the current decor and pulling something so ancient it was brand new out of storage and plastering it all over the walls. Every time he visited after completing his latest Journeyman assignment, things looked strange.

Still...

Robinton backed out of the side corridor so he was back in the entry way.

"Are you lost, sir?" the apprentice called, finally taking note--or deciding to act--on his obvious confusion.

"I, ah, no." _I've lived in this Hall most of my life--how could I be lost?_ He didn't let the words out, however. The boy looked tired enough as it was, he didn't need sarcasm directed at him. "I've decided I'm going to grab a bite to eat, before going to bed," Robinton said. It felt...safest, somehow, and his stomach was indeed grumbling along in a prelude to outright angry growling. So he followed his belly to the kitchens, the sense of being vastly in error still perusing him. And then his feet gradually stuttered to a stop since it felt as if a monster out of a story was about to leap out and--

Something large and heavy suddenly flapped directly at his head, and Robinton made a sound that was quite possibly unmanly and bolted three long steps out of the way and nearly bowled over a woman who was his own age or perhaps slightly older. "Pardon me!" he said, putting his hands on the side of either shoulder just in case he _had_ managed to knock her over, but she seemed to be standing quite steadily in place, so he let her go and hoped that she hadn't heard that sound he'd made--or that she had ascribed it to the _thing_...that...that wasn't _there_ anymore.

Bloody shards and red stars...he searched around him and above him frantically, but there was nothing _there_.

"Are you all right?" the woman asked him.

Robinton glanced at her. She was tall, with blue eyes, and an explosion of dark wavy hair that was nominally contained within a tail. She was angular and austere in build, a handsome woman rather than a beauty. She also had a Master's knot on her shoulder, which made Robinton suddenly feel worried for her. It wasn't unknown for a Singer to throw on her lover's shirt, knots and all, although this woman's beau must be an unusually slender man to wear that tunic. But some of the more chauvinistic Masters would go wher-maddened to see it, and that inevitably ended up in a brawl of some sort as half the hall retaliated against the boor that threatened the poor Singer, and the other half supported the boor with their words and fists.

Robinton reflected that the Hall needed improvement in that area. His mother, for example, often carried out all the duties of a Harper, barring the judicial ones, but to give her a Master's knot? Preposterous! Never mind that she was widely lauded as one of the most popular Singers ever to walk Pern. Actually acknowledging that her talents were equal to any other Harper's would get some untalented, incompetent wher-faced imbecile's smalls in a twist, and...

Well. Robinton sighed. No need to get angry here and now. Besides, he suspected the sudden anger was rooted in his fears of a moment ago, and his embarrassment at someone seeing him like that. So he swallowed it, along with his pride. "I feel as if the universe has made a grievous accounting error somewhere," he told her. "I'm unsure if that falls under the heading of 'all right'. Usually this type of thing only happens when I manage to quaff a white wine against my better judgment, but I'm afraid the last thing I drank was definitely a _red_, if you're being generous and calling it a wine. Albeit on an empty stomach. Which was why I was headed towards the kitchens. But I could have sworn something tried to land on my head a few moments ago--the apprentices didn't let loose a flock of waterfowl in here again, did they?"

The woman didn't actually laugh, but her eyes were bright with it. "That would have been Diver," the woman said. Robinton noted she was a mezzo-soprano. "Bronze firelizard. He was probably aiming for your shoulder, but your head got in the way."

"How terribly inconvenient for him!" Robinton said.

"Your shrieking and running away didn't help either; they usually like to land on stationary targets." The side of her mouth quirked up.

So she'd noticed. He could feel a subtle blush rise in his cheeks, which he tried to ignore. But--firelizards? It seemed as improbable to have those creatures flying about the hall as it would to have a flock of waterfowl trying to land on his head and then vanishing as if going _between_...oh. A thought clicked into place like a puzzle piece. So that's what had happened to it.

"Does the Masterharper know about them?" Robinton asked, and then felt somewhat silly for asking it. How, exactly, could one miss something that looked like a miniature dragon attempting a landing on one's head? Unless that sort of thing only happened to _him_. Which could be entirely possible.

The woman's eyes lost their amusement, and her smile faded. "Which Masterharper?" she asked after a moment, her voice holding a queer note.

The feeling of unease came back again. He thought of holding his tongue, of backtracking and seeing if, by chance, F'lon and Simanith had come back. But in all likelihood, the pair were back in Benden, seeing a Healer for a second opinion on their lightening-struck and tree-struck wounds. "Master Gennell," he said quietly.

The expression on the woman's face immediately became conflicted, several emotions flickering over it in quick succession until it smoothed out and became blank. Not the best actress he'd ever seen, but he didn't know her well enough to decipher that blank mask so it worked regardless. "I think perhaps...you should come with me."

"This isn't concerning these...firelizards anymore, is it?" Robinton asked.

"No. Not really." She carefully closed one hand around his bicep, as if the touch might frighten him away, or break something in him...or her...and led him to the upper level of the Hall.

#

The woman led him upstairs and left him in the Masterharper's office. But it was obvious from the decor that an entirely different man called this office his own; redecorating the Hall at large with scenery tapestries was one thing...but you couldn't erase a man's personality and touch from his quarters nearly as easily. If Gennell still called these quarters home, Robinton would eat his gitar, case and all.

There were a few choices in seating in the room; a well-worn but comfortable looking leather couch against one wall, under a set of cupboards Robinton didn't recall as having been there before. A set of wooden armchairs before the desk. A stool to one side of the desk, probably either well-regarded or well-hated by apprentices, depending on this Master's leadership style. Seating himself in any of the choices didn't seem...quite right, and besides he hadn't been invited to sit down. So he paced around the room in lieu of examining it, because he knew some Masters were touchy about others looking at their things, even if they left them sitting around for all to come upon.

Well. He mostly didn't examine things. Could he help it if a half-written score sitting in a pile at the edge of the desk caught his eye? It was a catchy tune, and he ran his left fingers through the fingerings absently, before moving away to pace around again.

After a while, he noticed that up in the rafters, in the dark, were some more of the firelizards. Two golds, watching him as intently as he'd ever seen a firelizard stare at someone from afar. Also a bronze, and a...brown? It was difficult to tell, as they were far away from the glows. He also thought he saw something blue, but perhaps something Harperish was tucked into the rafters. "Hello," he said softly. They were rather fascinating, when they weren't flapping at his head exactly on cue when he was already feeling jittery, and scaring the red right out of his blood.

They didn't make a sound, just stared at him, blue and green hued eyes whirling slowly.

Then the door to the Masterharper's personal quarters opened suddenly, drawing Robinton's eyes, and a tall man, taller even than himself, emerged, and their gazes caught.

Shock. It was quickly masked, and masked much more skillfully than the woman's reactions, but Robinton saw it, and couldn't help but wonder--and fear, just a bit--the reasons why they were so...emotionally affected by seeing him.

It was probably connected to the reason he felt like some grievous error had occurred, whatever reason had caused Gennell to no longer be Masterharper, to cause those...gem-like creatures flying about within the Hall to create little to no comment from the woman. It was also probably connected to the real reason the decor had changed abruptly, and that almost made him laugh--how human of him to automatically ascribe the most likely culprit to that change, Master Gennell in this case, until all this other evidence suggested in a loud, blinding scream that the decor had nothing to do with Gennell's whims.

And then, Robinton suddenly wondered if, if he walked down the hall to the Masters' quarters, would he find his mother and Petiron in the appropriate rooms? Or would there be strangers there, staring up at him and his intrusion as he walked into their private rooms and lives?

Then the man, brown eyed, and brown haired, and brown skinned, came up to him, and clasped Robinton's hand in his. He had a warm, confident clasp, but the words that came out of his mouth didn't quite match the confidence. "Master Robinton?" he asked.

Master? Oh no, no, no, no, he was still studying his...and he hadn't walked...Robinton took his hand back and patted down his pockets, and finally withdrew a rather wrinkled and bedraggled Journeyman's knot. "I'm afraid not, Masterharper," he said, and held up the rank knot.

"Oh," the man said in confusion. "You're not Robinton?"

"I _am_ Robinton," Robinton said. "But it's a little premature to call me a Master." He waved the Journeyman's knot like a small flag to call attention to it. Then he blinked and realized it might work better if he just put the blasted thing on his shoulder. Which he did.

The Harper in front of him blinked, then threw back his head and laughed. And laughed. And laughed, and finally stumbled back to sit on the edge of his desk, managing to avoid setting his rump down on open sand by mere inches, still laughing the entire time.

Robinton smiled wanly, game for understanding the joke, if there was one. Then he realized..."How did you know my name?" he asked.

"Menolly told me."

"Is that the woman's name? With the firelizards?"

"'That woman with the firelizards' works too," the Masterharper told him, just as the door into the private quarters opened again, and the woman entered the room. "I use it all the time. 'Woman! With the firelizards!'" This he directed at her.

She rolled her eyes.

The Masterharper chuckled again. "Since she obviously didn't introduce herself, Mast...Jour..." he paused, as if momentarily flummoxed by his inability to get the appropriate title out. "May I call you Robinton? Just...'Robinton'?"

Robinton spread his hands to indicate that he was well and truly lost here, and hadn't the faintest as to what was actually happening. A little informality wasn't likely to hurt things. "I imagine you could call me whatever you want. 'You there!' 'Man without firelizards!' 'Screaming Man!'" He threw out a few suggestions.

"Wha--?" the Masterharper looked a bit confused, but the woman--Menolly--laughed in delight.

"Well, this _is_ the Harper Hall, I expect sooner or later it will get out that I had a...a..._firelizard_ try to land on my head and I ran away screaming. It's usually not as bad if you admit it straight out. Gets it out of the way and all, deflates their sails 'fore the ship even leaves port. Don't ask me why I'm using nautical similes," he added with a smile, while shaking his head.

"It might be prudent to use another name," Menolly suggested to Robinton, while the Masterharper started to laugh again.

"You don't like the sound of 'Screaming Man'?" Robinton asked her in jest. "Or is my given name taboo?"

"Well, it's not _that_--" she started.

The Masterharper shook his head at her. "It will be the worst kept secret ever, Menolly."

"You think?" she asked him, cocking her head to the side and regarding him.

The Masterharper just nodded, and seemed thoughtful.

So Robinton took the opening, and said, "I don't mean to be a bother, but I seem to only have bits and pieces of this puzzle here, and I think I'm blind to boot, and if you've ever tried it, putting a puzzle together by touch alone is difficult to do."

Both of them turned to look at him expectantly, which wasn't quite what Robinton was expecting, but he forged on, ticking off letters on his fingertips.

"A--I don't believe I've met either of you, but you obviously have some knowledge of me. B--the Harper Hall is here, but the decor is different, and Master Gennell is obviously not the Masterharper for reasons unknown to me. C--there are tame firelizards here. D--Menolly doesn't think it would be good for me to go by my own name. E--please don't take this the wrong way, I don't mean offense, but you're wearing a Harper rank knot, Menolly, and it would take a very oddly proportioned gentleman to fit into your tunic." Menolly was turning a shade of red, and Robinton hoped it wasn't because she was upset or angry with him now. "The only things I can think of that would explain all of these things are that I'm having a very bizarre lucid dream, or that I ingested an overdose of felis juice and I am now severely hallucinating, and the Healers are probably tying me to a bed so I don't hurt myself even as we speak." Robinton paused, and tried to put into words other possibilities, other things he'd noticed. "There's also a small possibility that someone poisoned me," he added in a smaller voice, thinking of Fax. "Which could also induce--"

"How did you get to the Hall?" Menolly asked, cutting him off, but gently.

Right. No need to sound paranoid about an old boyhood enemy. "F'lon and Simanith," Robinton said. "A bronze pair," he added, in case the information was relevant.

"Where were you before that?"

Robinton shook his head. "A jungle somewhere, beach, by the ocean. F'lon didn't know where it was."

"How did you get there?" the Masterharper asked.

"Through _between_. Although we went _between_ in the middle of a storm; F'lon was hit by lightening, and Simanith got partially tangled in a skybroom."

They stared at him, and then Menolly walked off and scrabbled in a bin for some hide, while the Masterharper rubbed his chin. "Where did they go after they dropped you here?"

"I presume home," Robinton said. "To Benden Weyr. They might have stopped at Benden Hold."

"It's probably too late to prevent the initial brouha, Sebell," Menolly said. "But _this_ might help, if it gets to the right person. I'm going to send Beauty to F'nor, and let him know."

"You don't think F'lar will recognize his own...?" The Masterharper--presumably Sebell--replied.

"I'm more thinking of Ramoth's possible reaction to a dragonrider she doesn't know. F'nor will likely be close enough to get their attention, but not as immediately occupied if Ramoth isn't happy about this as F'lar might be. Or, on the other hand, I could be entirely wrong and they're all having klah and bubbly pies right about now, listening to the Weyrharper's latest tunes. I did send a packet of them the other day; he's probably had time to learn a few of them by now," Menolly said.

"Better safe than sorry. Write a copy for Kimi; we'll send her to F'lar, just in case. I'll get our riding gear."

"I'm afraid I'm lost again," Robinton interjected.

Sebell grimaced. "Once we talk to the Benden Weyrleaders, we'll have a better handle on what we can tell you. You see--you never mentioned this little incident to us."

Robinton tried to process this and failed. "And I _should_ have?" he asked, cluelessly, raising his eyebrows.

"It's typically good form to," Menolly said. "Although I suppose you could have forgotten, you always had a lot on your mind. You can leave the gitar here--"

"No, you should take it," Sebell said.

Menolly gave Sebell a quizzical look, then shrugged. "Or take it."

Robinton chose to keep his gitar with him, and watched as Menolly strapped little harnesses around the two golden firelizards, who had flown down to the table, and then instructed the one called Beauty to go to F'nor, and the one called Kimi to go to F'lar. Then they waited a while, before Menolly suddenly said, "F'nor is here," as eerily as any dragonrider, and the three of them trooped down to meet this "brownrider from Benden".


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

F'nor was a steady-looking man of middle years, who rode a brown dragon named Canth, and he vaguely reminded Robinton of someone he couldn't quite put his finger on. Although that wasn't surprising; if the man was weyrbred, perhaps Robinton had met one of his relatives during the years he'd grown up at Benden Hold. Although, considering the circumstances...assuming that there might be people left in this world that he actually _knew_.

F'nor gave Robinton an inscrutable look, then tilted his head to look at his dragon, who seemed to be eyeing Robinton with interest. It was difficult to tell, but that's what Robinton thought was happening when the dragon snaked his head around to face him. A moment later, F'nor's brow furrowed, and he said to the Harpers, "Are you _sure_?"

Sebell gaped at him for a moment, then laughed.

"No offense meant," Menolly apologized for Sebell's behavior. "It's been a long day, and it just got a _little_...stranger."

"I'd hate to meet the rest of the Hall if I'm considered 'little'," Robinton quipped at her. "It might make me feel un-masculine, and unsure of myself." He smiled in amusement at his own joke.

Menolly blinked at him, and Sebell stopped laughing long enough to make the clichéd drum-and-cymbal bashing sound.

"Are you alright?" Menolly asked Robinton, looking concerned.

"There is a small possibility that I am still drunk," Robinton confessed to her. "The hangover hasn't set in quite like it will once the alcohol has made it out of my system."

F'nor made a sound, and Sebell stopped laughing. "There was wine involved in this?"

"I hesitate to dignify it with the moniker of 'wine'," Robinton said.

"Perhaps there was a _reason_ he never told us of this," Menolly muttered softly to herself. Robinton still wasn't sure how he could have known to tell something to people he didn't knew, but agreed that he normally didn't feel that it was necessary to enlighten everyone as to his more embarrassing moments, which this could well turn out being.

"Was F'lon drunk?" F'nor asked.

Robinton sighed. "At one point. Probably not now. I think the lightening scared it out of him. Not _literally,_" he added, realizing there had probably been a very good chance of one or the both of them vomiting all over the bronze dragon. Robinton resolved never to fly drunk again. _That's a horrible thing._ He also resolved to apologize to Simanith for putting the dragon in the position where he could be possibly puked upon.

_My sire will appreciate that,_ someone told him. A second later it percolated through Robinton's mind that it must be the brown, Canth, speaking.

"Ah, yes, well..." he told the brown awkwardly.

"Canth, you spoke to him?" F'nor asked.

"He did," Robinton confirmed. "It's an honor," he added quickly, knowing that some riders could get bent out of shape at such things.

F'nor gave the dragon a look that said, _well?_

Caneth shrugged, an interesting movement to see on a dragon, and lost interest in Robinton.

Another inscrutable look from the dragonrider. "Well, let's go see what F'lon has to say," F'nor said, and gestured towards his dragon.

"Er," Robinton said. "I don't have any riding leathers."

Everyone looked Robinton over, as if he'd made an elementary mistake. And perhaps he had, given F'lon's earlier words about it. He felt the urge to say something melodramatic about his pride, but decided it would hit too close to home, given that he was now obviously a drunk too stupid to come in out of the cold--or rather, put on his riding leathers when mounting a dragon. And also, at this rate, it might be better to put a cork in it until his head cleared, and he had a better handle on the situation. There were some very strange vibrations operating underneath this conversation, and he still was not sure what they signified.

"Stay here," Sebell said. "I'll be right back."

Robinton stayed put, and slid his hands into his pockets.

The three of them were silent, and after a few moments, the silence began to be awkward, and Robinton found himself wanting to say something. But what could he say? Would Menolly know any of the songs he knew? Had there been a final Gathering of the season at Benden today for these people? Even if there had been, best to stay away from that topic. He didn't want to make himself to be a boor on top of being a drunken, stupid lout, and retelling what had happened to get him thrown out of the Harper's tent early would certainly do that. And he _certainly_ didn't want to talk about the weather. He could come up with better conversation than _that_.

"You're not in trouble," Menolly offered him after a while.

"Excuse me?" he asked.

"You look very serious."

Robinton thought about this. He felt serious, underneath the Harper part of him that was struggling to keep a happier veneer up. "I arrive home and everyone I _knew_ has been replaced by people I _don't_ know. I'm sure you're all very _nice_ people, but it _is_ rather strange and unsettling."

Neither of them had a reply right away for that, but Menolly looked a bit sad.

Then there was a noise behind them, and Sebell returned, with a riding jacket and gloves over one arm. "Apologies for the delay; I'd forgotten where I'd kept this. Here you go," and he gave the jacket and gloves to Robinton.

Robinton shucked his gitar case carefully, lowering it to the ground by its strap, and pulled on the jacket. He could smell the scent of herbs that kept insects away from the leather during storage. It was a bit stiff from disuse, but when he slipped it over his shoulders, it fit surprisingly well--it actually made it down to his knees. It was also of particularly fine quality, the leather well cared for, the lining inside warm and soft; he immediately felt warmer and more comfortable upon donning it. Robinton suddenly wondered with a bit of dismay if the Masterharper had lent him one of _his_ riding jackets; they _were_ of a similar build, and this jacket was no Apprentice-work. "My eternal thanks for lending me this. I've gone through _between_ unprotected enough times today!"

"How many times?" F'nor asked.

"Twice, but the first time I was soaking wet."

"Ugh," Menolly said.

"You might want to see if a Healer can dose you with something preventative," F'nor advised. "Perhaps Brekke can get you something when we arrive. Going _between_ while soaked isn't something that's particularly good to do."

"Yes," Robinton agreed. "I found that out the hard way."

F'nor nodded, and motioned them up to his dragon. The brown obediently crouched so that they could climb up his shoulder.

And the four of them mounted up on Canth, and a few moments later, launched towards the dark night sky.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

_"Sit_, dragonrider."

Weyrwoman Lessa glanced across the table at her mate, and could tell that despite the calm, firm command, F'lar was not nearly as collected as he seemed. The young bronzerider pacing around the room was, after all, F'lar's long-deceased father, even if F'lon was not aware of this fact at the moment.

F'lon shot F'lar a rebellious look with oh-so-familiar yellow eyes, but sat on the stool on the other side of the table. Then he jumped up again. "They should _be_ here by now. It shouldn't take this long to make a jump _between_ from the Harper Hall to here. Did you send somebody incompetent?"

"Given the story you told us, I would be hesitant in calling somebody else incompetent," Lessa reprimanded her mate's father when F'lar hesitated a second too long in formulating a reply. "They will be here soon enough, so have patience; with the knock Simanith took to the head, he shouldn't be making any trips _between_ for a while, particularly when you consider the circumstances at hand."

F'lon ran a hand through his long hair, and shook his head to himself. "I can't believe I _left_ him there. Simanith decided not to land in the courtyard like he usually does, but I thought he just didn't want to navigate it in the dark, tired as we were. _Shards_. I just _left_ Robinton among strangers!"

"He's not really among strangers," another voice said, and Manora entered the room, looking much more hesitant than normal. "He'll be fine. We sent F'nor to get him, and trust me, F'nor isn't going to let _you_ down."

F'lon looked irritated for a second, then he gave Manora a second glance, and a furrow appeared between his brows. The other people in the room held their breaths, waiting to see if he recognized the woman who had borne his second son, but he didn't seem to entirely make the connection between the woman who stood in the doorway now, and the young woman he knew from his time, and looked away, the question in his eyes unanswered.

Manora pressed her lips together, but in the end, did not enlighten him. Not yet.

They didn't wait much longer for F'nor, Robinton, and the Harpers to arrive; the Weyrleaders glanced at one another when Mnementh and Ramoth told them that Canth had arrived, and not long after that three familiar figures walked in, and one mostly unfamiliar.

"Rob!" F'lon cried, and embraced the Harper as if they hadn't seen each other no more than an hour ago.

And as Robinton returned F'lon's surprisingly hearty hug in amiable surprise, Lessa realized with a shock that she _recognized_ the man. Not as Robinton, _their_ Robinton with white jaw-length hair and wisdom in his blue eyes and a ready smile for everyone, no, but as the man with the thick, long brown braid who had frequented Ruatha Hold more and more often in the days before Fax had...

"You taught me a song," she told him before she could stop herself.

"Beg pardon?" Robinton asked, realizing he was being addressed.

"You sat me on your knees," Lessa said. "And taught me a song _my_ Harper didn't know."

"Which song?"

Lessa tried to recall the exact tune, and, surprisingly and to her own dismay, could not. "It was about the holds," she said pensively.

Robinton blinked. "This one?" And he sang one of the older teaching songs, in a clear, skilled baritone that had perhaps less age to it than they were accustomed to. It was a voice that hadn't been heard in the Weyr for Turns.

"I sing that one a lot to young children," Robinton said, after completing the first verse. "And it is true that I've sat some of those children on my knees before. The version that commonly circulates isn't my original, and I think the original is more in tune, if you will, to a young child's mind, given I was a young child myself when I composed it. But--" and he looked apologetic here, "--if I may be so bold, you're a little...grown...Weyrwoman...to have sat on my knees at any point while I sang you teaching ballads."

"Are you sure?" F'lon asked.

Robinton's brow furrowed. "What?" he said to his friend.

"Are you sure that, if you rack your brain, you've never sat a grown woman on your lap and sung to her?"

That surprised a tenor laugh out of Sebell. Menolly tried to hush him, but it didn't work well given the note of laughter in her voice too.

Robinton gave F'lon an indulgent look. "_Yes_. I'm _sure_."

F'lon turned away and ambled back to the stool he'd sat on earlier. "Well, that explains the sorry state of your love life," he said to the room in general, and sat. "Imagine, not using your biggest talent."

Robinton stalked over and laid a hand on F'lon's shoulder, while leaning over to speak in his ear. "Don't worry F'lon; you have a dragon. As long as he keeps catching greens, _your_ love life will be _just _fine." And he patted F'lon's shoulder for effect.

"How much did you two actually _have_ to drink at that Gather you were at?" Menolly asked, while F'lon struggled to either come up with a retort or restrain laughter. Lessa thought it was a good question.

"Enough that when we tried to go home, home was there, but without the people we're accustomed to," Robinton said, turning the course of the conversation onto a safer track. "I must say, I might actually _abstain_ next time after this..."

"About that," Lessa said.

Robinton met her eyes directly for the first time, but there was no recognition on his end. He had never met her, as far as he knew. "...are you planning on holding me to my promise to abstain, Weyrwoman?" he asked.

"Actually no," Lessa said wryly. "_That_ would likely be an impossible task. You shouldn't set unattainable goals for yourself, Harper," and she permitted herself the slightest of smiles as the rest of the room made a few sounds of amusement. "What I was referring to--you actually _did_ teach me that ballad. I just didn't realize that had been you, until now. You never spoke of it, and by the time I met you again, you looked somewhat different."

"...I don't understand," he said.

"This is a topic that is classified," F'lar said. "Understand that it can not go beyond this room."

Sebell cleared his throat. "Naturally we'll be discreet, but there are a few individuals in the Hall that will be notified that haven't been already," he interjected.

F'lar nodded. "I'm more saying this for the benefit of _these_ two," and he nodded towards F'lon and Robinton.

"I'm listening," Robinton said neutrally.

"Dragons are capable of--" F'lar started.

"Simanith has taken--" Lessa said at the same time, before halting. F'lar gestured for her to go on, his broody expression lightening with the faintest hint of a smile in the corners of his eyes. She kept her expression stern for the rest of the room, however. "Simanith has taken the three of you _between_ in time," she said. "Forward, from your time to ours."

"--how far forward?--" F'lon said.

"--would this affect the duration of _between_?--" Robinton asked at the same time. They looked at each other, and Robinton made a motion of his hand, as if waving F'lon forward. "Your question is more pertinent."

"Over fifty Turns," Lessa said when they both turned their attention back to her.

F'lon let out a whistle. "Babes in diapers are grown with grandbabes of their own," he said.

"Do you _know_ us?" Robinton asked, the pieces visibly falling into place on his face. "Or, did you? Are we still alive? As, as...older men?"

"Both of you have passed on," Menolly told them gently.

Both young men thought about that.

Menolly continued after a few moments. "I think the biggest issue here--and correct me if I'm wrong, Weyrleader, Weyrwoman--is that we were not expecting you."

Lessa nodded in confirmation.

"How do you mean?" F'lon said.

"Your present is our past," Lessa said. "What happens _happens_ because it already _happened_, if you want to have a go at understanding that riddle, Harper. But neither I nor F'lar recall--"

"Menolly and I don't recall anything either," Master Sebell said.

"--being told that either of you remember coming forward. It seems a strange omission."

"Quite frankly it makes you a bloody good actor, and a bald faced liar," F'lar said to Robinton. "Considering that in your future--and my past--you disavow any previous knowledge of _between_ times."

"I once had an intensive discussion about _between_ times," Menolly said, "With...with the older you, Master Robinton--"

"--Journeyman," Robinton corrected softly.

"Journeyman," Menolly said, while Lessa narrowed her eyes. Why would Robinton and Menolly ever need to have an intensive discussion about _between_ times? Had they been up to something?

"I was wondering about my firelizards, they were giving me...interesting...visions at the time, but anyway that's not important. What's...what I find confusing is that you, this younger-you, is here now, but yet you never made any hint or mention of this to me in the past. Why not? It seems a strange thing to omit, given the subject we discussed. It would have been more in character to pull me and Sebell aside, and warn us that you would be coming forward in time at one point, even if you never gave us details on how or _when_."

"Was I as similarly close-lipped?" F'lon asked her.

"I was never acquainted with you," Menolly said.

"You were convinced that Thread would fall again, but never mentioned anything to me about traveling _between_ times," F'lar said.

"You never mentioned anything to me either," F'nor agreed.

"I've always believed Thread will return; why else would the Weyrs be here?" F'lon said. "You just don't find the manpower and time and resources to cut not just one, but several, Weyrs out of solid rock unless they are needed for some reason. And history gives us that reason," he explained.

"I think that negates _that_ theory," Sebell said to Menolly.

"Theory?" F'lon said.

"That you were convinced Thread was going to return because you'd already come forward and seen it."

"Thread _exists_?"

Robinton began to laugh at F'lon, who turned around and shook a finger at him.

"Hey, now, there's no call for that. I never said that I believed Thread would fall _soon_. I can be surprised that Thread is falling in...in this time. I'm no hypocrite!"

"Peace," Robinton said. "I never said you were." But there was still laughter in his blue eyes. Then he sobered. "I can't even begin to calculate the ramifications of ending up over fifty Turns in the future. Or...or of the capabilities of dragons traveling _between_ different...different _whens_."

F'lar nodded slowly in agreement. This version of the Masterharper was younger, perhaps, but not stupid. "There are ramifications, certainly. For example, if you were to go home now, you would _know_ that the Ninth Pass is coming."

F'lon scratched his jaw thoughtfully. "And you were hoping that, in _my_ future, I told _you_ about Thread before it actually came back, because you just told me _now_?" F'lon asked.

"It usually works that way," F'lar said. "That it's not working that way now says that we're missing a piece of the puzzle, or that we are wrong in our understanding of things." His brow furrowed. "The latter is worrying."

Everyone was quiet again.

Finally Robinton spoke. "Would it be so inappropriate for me to indulge my curiosity in this...world-of-my-future?" He looked so hopeful and young that it nearly broke Lessa's heart.

Behind his back, the Harpers looked at each other, and Manora, who had been lingering, silent, the entire time, finally had a wisp of a smile cross her uncharacteristically dour face.

"I don't think--" Sebell began.

"No," F'lar said firmly.

F'lon chuckled, and looked at his friend. "C'mon, did you really think they were going to say _yes_? Besides, we'll eventually see it the good old-fashioned way," he added, blithely unaware of his future fate.

Robinton shook his head. "Not really; we're dead. Or did you miss that part, when Master Menolly told us?"

F'lon turned back to everyone else. "How long dead have we been? Are we just somewhat cold and stiff, or entirely rotted away?" His tone was light--that of a young man who had never seriously contemplated that he could die, and who was unwilling to look at it entirely front-on right now.

Nobody answered.

Robinton leaned over the bronzerider's shoulder. "C'mon, did you really think they were going to answer that?" he said, mimicking F'lon's earlier tone exactly. "What _can_ we be told? Are we going to be brought home?"

"It would be best for Simanith to bring you two home," Lessa told them. "Once he recovers, and we provide proper training so that you two don't end up arriving before you left, or something else as complicated. He has the coordinates, and it is the simplest course of action."

"And until then?"

"Get some rest," F'lar said. "I was hoping talking to both of you as well as Masterharper Sebell and Menolly would give us some conclusive knowledge as to what and how much you should be made aware of, but that doesn't seem to be the case."

"It would be prudent to approach things with a fresh mind and fresh day," Sebell agreed. "I would invite the both of you to the Harper Hall for the night, except given that Robinton is recognizable upon sight by many of the senior Masters, that would probably be unwise, since it would cause considerable talk if they found out a younger version of a deceased Harper was staying at the Hall for the night."

"It would be best if both of you stayed here, at Benden Weyr," Lessa agreed.

"I'm not recognizable?" F'lon asked humorously.

"Dragonriders are more pragmatic about traveling between _whens_," Lessa said. "Stray time-travelers...happen. They will keep quiet about it, and won't bother either of you."

"Harpers are nosy and big-mouthed," Menolly added, shrugging. "Traveling _between_ whens makes for a good ballad. And ballads get sung everywhere."

Robinton looked slightly thoughtful, Lessa noted, but did not elaborate on his line of thought.

"All right," F'lon said finally. "That's probably a good plan. Rob?"

"I certainly could use some sleep. Thank you for your hospitality, Weyrleaders."

"Never let it be said we ever give stray time-travelers the cold shoulder!" Manora said humorously, drawing attention to herself for the first time. "Come with me, Robinton, F'lon; I'll get you all squared away, and a bite to eat if you're looking for it, too."

"Manora runs the lower caverns," Lessa said. "We'll reconvene in the morning--does that work for you, Harpers?"

"Oh, we'll find time for it, somewhere," Sebell said with a grin. "Good night, Bronzerider F'lon, Journeyman Robinton."

And Sebell, Menolly, Lessa, F'lar, and F'nor watched as Manora led Robinton and F'lon out of the room.

"That's a trouble-making pair, if I ever saw one," Menolly commented with a smile as the door closed.

"Understatement," Sebell murmured. "Luckily for us, they don't seem inclined to mischief."

"Considering the wound on Simanith's head," Lessa said, "It might be more correct to say that they aren't inclined to mischief _now_."

"Do many of your dragonriders go _between_ times by mistake?" Menolly asked.

"On occasion," F'lar said. "With poor visualization. But usually _backwards_, not forwards. Another reason this is unique. But...I would expect them to return to their own time within a sevenday or so without any issue."

"So the question is of if we should lock them in a very small windowless room until then," Sebell said.

Menolly looked horrified for a moment, then realized that the man was joking. Sort of. Mostly. She scowled at him direly, then softened when he winked.

"Not to cast doubt...well, yes, to cast doubt, but I don't actually mean to...Canth doesn't actually react to Robinton as if he's The Harper," F'nor said.

"How so?" Menolly asked.

"He's indifferent. I can't really get an explanation out of him, though."

"I would say it's more unusual for a dragon _not_ to be indifferent to anyone who isn't a dragonrider..." F'lar said. "But I get your point. Lessa?"

Lessa had already started to ask Ramoth her opinion on things.

_The Harper is gone,_ Ramoth replied, and wouldn't elaborate, although Lessa caught the feel that it was perhaps a stupid question to the great golden queen dragon. Mnementh and Canth had similar viewpoints, when she queried them on their thoughts about Robinton, and were similarly disinterested in elaborating on the difference between this Robinton, and the Robinton whose death had caused the entire planet to mourn. "They are ambiguous," she said. "It may just mean that this Robinton is too young for them to connect with _our_ Robinton. I would think that fifty turns will alter how a man thinks. Perhaps they are picking up on that?"

F'nor seemed unconvinced, but was willing to let it drop; if the young man they'd talked to a few moments ago _wasn't_ Robinton, he was certainly doing a good enough impression.

"What do the dragons think of F'lon?" Menolly asked, curious.

"He's F'lon," both F'lar and F'nor said at the same time.

"Simanith is Simanith," Lessa added.

"Well. Okay," Menolly said.

Sebell looked like he was about to say something, then shook his head and didn't. "In all seriousness, do we want to request that they limit themselves in exposure to our times? Or will it work itself out, because it already happened?"

"I thought a sticking point was that we don't know that it _did_ happen," Menolly said. "Being as none of us were made aware of it. I don't know if we want to be making decisions on theories that are flawed. Particularly when both men involved end up highly influential."

Both Harpers looked at F'lar and Lessa.

Lessa spoke. "It's possible that we're just missing a piece as pointed out earlier; Robinton has a tendency to be very subtle. Is there any possibility you could look in the Harper Hall archives to see if something may be there?"

"We were intending to," Sebell said. "We'll let you know what we find, if anything."

"Thank you," Lessa said.

F'lar yawned, then looked around. "I suppose there's nothing else that can be done about this tonight; we'll look in our archives as well, although I don't expect to find anything."

"We'll take our leave, then," Sebell said. "F'nor, if we could impose upon you again--"

"--not a problem," F'nor assured them.

And with that, the meeting between Harpers and Dragonriders adjourned, until the next morning.

#

**Author's Notes:** If you haven't already, you might want to add me-the-author rather than this particular story to your Author Alerts, just in case I do another redo. :) I don't plan to, but, well, writing Robinton is difficult for me. Not anywhere nearly as easy as Afra. Hopefully I'm doing better this time around.

Anyway, those of you who have come to read the story again, thank you for returning. I've incorporated bits of the original story that I thought were still good, so some of the stuff so far isn't new, but from here forward, the majority of what you'll see is new to you. (I've recycled some old bits of the original Skyboom further on, but those bits were never seen by anyone else but me in the first place, so it's only old to me, heh.)

This story started out as something rather cracktastic, but now it's been morphing into something rather epic and dramatic; _I_ certainly cackle in glee over some of the things I have planned. I hope I can carry it off, but we'll see. Feel free to let me know if I'm slipping or if something seems wrong.

And again, thanks for reading, and for reviewing!


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

"Did we ever go through all of this?" Menolly asked Sebell, as she sat on the floor of one of the archive rooms, in particular the room dedicated to Robinton, scrolls arranged into loose heaps in a way that would make Arnor, the Master Scrivener, cry.

"We stopped, if I recall, shortly before Lessa was found on Search. Little that happened before then is relevant in an everyday sense these days. I've been poking further back when occasion warrants it, but that applies to Gennell and the Masters before him as well. I wonder if I'm going to generate half as much archive material by the time I'm done on this planet," Sebell mused.

"Some of these have blots," Menolly remarked. "We can probably consider any material I haven't cried upon as unread."

Sebell started to laugh. "Oh, Menolly..."

"I can't believe I didn't _recognize_ him," Menolly said, and her voice broke so unexpectedly in the middle of the words, that her hand flew to her throat. "I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm reacting to it all _now_..."

"Don't worry, I feel the same way. And I'd say you recognized him well enough to bring him upstairs and come flying in to tell me just who you'd just found wandering the Hall."

"No. I mean...I stood there _talking_ to him, like I might with any stranger who'd just had a startle from one of my fair," Menolly said. "I mean, the similarities are there--the _voice_ should have been a dead giveaway, especially when he started making those eloquent little jokes."

"Eloquent little jokes?" Sebell teased.

Menolly blushed. "_You_ know," she accused. "But it didn't really _hit_ me until I realized he hadn't a clue what firelizards were, or why they were in the Hall, and that he thought the Masterharper was still _Gennell_. When he mentioned _Gennell_, that's when I saw, that's when I _realized_. I had a thought, half a thought before that perhaps he was...a son, a son we hadn't _known_ about--"

"--that wouldn't happen," Sebell said confidently.

"I _know_ that, but when you come across a young man who has physical similarities to someone you _know_ very well, what is the usual cause of that? Time-traveler, or the man's offspring?"

Sebell's mouth twitched. "I would vote for time-traveler," he said.

"Ha. Well, _you're_ Masterharper," she said. "From down here in the rank-and-file I would say offspring. I'd be _wrong_ in this case, but how many other cases would I be _right_ on?"

"You never knew him when he was younger, and still had dark hair, Menolly," Sebell said. "I did."

"White hair doesn't make that big of a difference," she pointed out.

"No, but twenty Turns do. Ugly fellow, these days, isn't he?" the man asked mischievously.

"He is _not _ugly!" Menolly protested, to Sebell's laughter. "He is not!"

"Silvina always said he looked better when he got older..."

"Be that as it may, he's not any uglier than _you_ are!"

Sebell winced. "Ouch!"

Menolly relented. "Neither of you are ugly...but it's strange seeing him with such a young face. I kind of want to reach over and tug on it."

"Shards, Menolly!"

"Well, you know. So it's in the right shape. His cheeks don't look right. You don't want to give them a little tug, to sort of re-arrange them?"

"Not _particularly_," Sebell said, screwing up his mobile face to give her a _look_.

"Oh, you."

"Don't 'oh, you' me. _You're_ the one that wants to pull on his face like it's taffy."

They both paused, after that, looking at each other, and almost immediately broke into laughter.

"Are you imaging his face if he heard us discussing this?"

"I am." Sebell laughed to himself again, the sound almost silent.

They dug through the old files for a while after that without saying much--mostly due to the specter raised in both of their minds...of Master Robinton, _their_ Master, walking in on them during such a ridiculous conversation.

"He never said anything to you, during that thing you did with Jaxom, about this?" Sebell asked after a while.

Menolly shook her head. "Nothing at all. Not during, not after, not even the few times we again discussed going _between_ time. He had..._numerable_...openings. It's unlike him not to take them."

"And, as far as you're aware, since he's here _now_, he had to have experienced whatever he's here to experience in his youth?"

Menolly nodded. "That's how I've always understood how it works. F'lar and Lessa didn't really say anything to contradict." She quickly unrolled some scrolls, glanced through them, and rolled them back up again. "Perhaps he had memory loss, and forgot to tell us."

"Perhaps it's not really him, but his son, coming _between_ through time. Then, we'd _both_ be right!"

"Ha. But we've already confirmed that F'lon is F'lon. Why would his passenger, whom he calls 'Robinton', not be Robinton? And anyway--young or not, even if I was uncertain at first or not--it _is_ him!" Menolly said.

"Indeed." Sebell rubbed his chin, then rose from his own spot on the floor and started pigeonholing all of the scrolls and hides he'd found no clues in. "There is the thought that perhaps he meant _not_ to tell us. Or that he planned to be alive when it happened, but hidden behind us so he wouldn't have to get close enough to himself to fall ill like dragonriders do when they get too near to themselves."

"That still leaves enough questions open--enough to make my head hurt," Menolly said. "Maybe they will be able to successfully go _between_ in a sevenday. Maybe we will decide to ask them not to go wandering about, and they will agree. If so, if Robinton has spent less than a full sevenday here, without really learning much more than that Thread does exist, there wouldn't have been a reason for him to say anything to _us_ about it, would there be? That would fit; he never told us, because it wasn't very interesting and he knew we'd ask him to do this anyway. No point in making it even more complicated."

"I hate leaving him in the dark on purpose, though."

"Yes," Menolly said. "But, Robinton told me a long time ago about Lessa's journey to bring the weyrs forward, and never once indicated that he had any inkling of how things would turn out at the time. Do you think Robinton could have been acting the entire time? With me, and with F'lar?"

"He might have the gall to try. But I'm not sure he could pull it off. I'm not sure _anyone_ would be able to pull _that_ off; lying to F'lar's face while everyone was simultaneously having a nervous breakdown, wondering if the only Queen left was dead or not? That would be very...dedicated...acting. I say he didn't know."

They were quiet for a while, moving hides around and scanning them to see if something about _between_ or future events or anything remotely related was ever mentioned.

"So we keep him in the dark?" Menolly asked. "Unless we find something conclusive in this moldering pile of hides?"

Sebell sighed. "It's probably the best course. For his own good. And for the good of his future to come. And the simplest explanation _would_ be that he just never saw much of anything. Not _everything_ turns out to be a conspiracy."

#

**Author's Notes:** I'm sorry. This was intended to go up with the other three chapters; indeed, I posted it on the Meeting of Minds message board with all four chapters, but somehow neglected to upload the fourth chapter here. Ack! But here you go. :) Enjoy!


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Master Teslay slowly sat down in his chair after the large dragon that had landed in the courtyard at this strange hour of the night took off, with a passenger load of three. Two of them had been Masters Sebell and Menolly, which was not all that usual, particularly when dragons came calling after sunset. The third, however...

Well. There really was no call for a dead man to be riding around on a dragon, no matter how popular and well-loved he had been during life.

He wished it had been light enough to see their faces, or that he had returned to the guest quarters he was occupying just a little bit earlier. As it were, he'd only heard something through the open window about going _between_ without proper riding gear. Although, come to think of it...that said quite enough, given who one of the speakers had been, and _that_ rich baritone was unmistakable to any musician's ears.

Mater Teslay was of two minds regarding the late Masterharper Robinton; on one hand, there was no denying that he had cared very deeply for the people under his supervision. The Harper Hall had hit heights of popularity that had no precedent in known history during his tenure as Masterharper, and as a result, most everyone in the Hall had prospered. And in person, he was certainly charismatic, well-spoken, and not without a sense of humor, which Teslay thought was critical for men in power to have.

However...he _was_ but a man, and Master Teslay was not sure that the complications of his last legacy for Pern were _completely_ balanced out by the good he had done throughout his life.

This was practically a treasonous viewpoint to have among Harpers, and would get him well shunned among his peers if it ever got out, but Teslay wasn't entirely sure that the Abominators were entirely _wrong_. This wasn't an ignorant and ill-informed viewpoint; he had been stationed at Landing himself for several turns, and had used the machinery and computers left to them by their ancient ancestors himself. So, he considered himself to have an educated viewpoint, which was more than some people could say.

And, his viewpoint was, you didn't just _unleash_ technological advancements and new ways of thinking upon people without expecting some form of socio-economic backlash greater than a few malcontents. He feared the hidebound and ignorant Abominators were the least of their worries; more disturbing was the possible long-term consequences on their society and planet, which would be paid for by their children's children's children long after everyone currently alive on Pern was dead. The Abominators were mostly driven by fear of the unknown, complicated by the fear of learning. But that didn't mean that there wasn't a grain of _truth_ in their fears.

It was all a rather bit short-sighted of Robinton to have missed these things. And even more so for his Apprentices and effective heirs to keep on the same path, following close on his heels like a canine's litter of puppies, unhesitatingly and unthinkingly.

So it was worrisome to suddenly discover that Masterharper Sebell and the Dragonriders obviously couldn't let well enough alone, and had gone and done some sort of _between_ time stunt to bring Masterharper Robinton back. For how else could the man be walking the planet again?

Teslay rubbed his face and wondered if he was going to get any sleep tonight with thoughts like this running through his head. No, probably not. He might need some klah to help, however.

There was only a single Journeyman whom Teslay was not familiar with in the kitchens when he arrived, but a pot of klah was still warm, so he gave a casual wave to the Journeyman and found himself a mug.

"Did you see that the Masterharper left again?" the Journeyman asked. He was nursing a small bowl of something at one of the tables. "Been in and out of here all day; I wonder what's gone wrong."

"I saw," Teslay said, sugaring his klah liberally. "Did you see who they had with them?"

The Journeyman chuckled. "Nah, already dark, and Canth casts a large shadow."

"Canth," Teslay said, thinking. "Isn't he..."

"Brown, rider is F'nor, the Weyrleader's kin."

"Ah yes. I knew I remembered the name. Must be getting old," Teslay quipped. "The _Benden_ Weyrleader, right?"

"Indeed. Why, have the Fort dragonriders started getting involved in interesting things too?" the man asked with a laugh.

"Oh, that would get Fort Hold's tail in a bunch. They already have _us_ to deal with!" Teslay said.

The Journeyman chuckled. "Very, _very_ true." He tucked into his food.

Swishing a spoon in his mug to dissolve the sugar, Teslay nodded to the other Harper, bid him goodnight, and returned to his quarters.

It was good to know that others had noted the comings and goings of the Masterharper today, but after mulling over the idea of questioning around to gather more information, Teslay abandoned it; if he began probing locally, no matter how subtly, it would get back to Master Sebell or Master Menolly soon enough. And if he wanted to keep an eye on things, he couldn't afford being posted somewhere far away and inaccessible...as a Master he technically had a choice of positions, but in practice it would be trivially easy for the Masterharper to bring pressures to bear should he begin to make a nuisance of himself.

And that wasn't even counting the involvement of the shadow Harpers, and the pressures _they_ could bring to bear merely by sitting in the same room as a man and staring at him.

So he sighed, and decided to start his digging abroad, best as he could. "Sapho?" he queried, looking around his quarters to see where his little blue scrap of a firelizard had stationed himself. "Sapho?"

A chirp, from the floor under the desk. Teslay looked there, and found his firelizard nestled in the velvet inside of his gitar case. "C'mere; I've a task for you."

Sapho was not the biggest or brightest of firelizards, but by dint of repetition and generous helpings of praise and spiced meat rolls, Teslay had trained him to the best of both their abilities, and Sapho had been known to do his assigned tasks better than browns, bronzes, and golds twice his size. Granted, he didn't have the initiative or flexibility of the higher ranking colors if something unexpected happened, but what he did do he did _well_. It was certainly a point of pride on Teslay's part, and he fancied Sapho was proud of himself too, sometimes.

Teslay held still as the blue firelizard unwound himself and climbed up his outstretched arm. "I've not updated your markings yet, have I?" he told the firelizard as it re-settled itself on his shoulder, noting that the colors for Landing were still visible on the creature's neck. "Ah, well. I'll get that fixed...just not right now. Might help us out a bit. Let me get your harness..."

Teslay had a friend he had made at Landing, a Tailor, who had then bounced around the various major Holds, Crafthalls, and Weyrs, making sure that this or that important or up-and-coming person was dressed to the nines for all the right Gathers. Currently he was at Benden Weyr, creating a commission for one of the junior queenriders.

The note Teslay wrote to his friend was quick; he said that there was an acquaintance he wanted to reestablish contact with, but it had been so long ago since he last saw him that his firelizard had never met the man, and was unable to find him. Blues just weren't quite as savvy as bronzes and golds, you know. He had heard, however, that the man had been to Benden Weyr recently. The man was tall, with blue eyes, and a baritone. Or, "middle-tone" as his friend liked to call it. Oh, and yes, he's a Harper. Was he actually there, or was the gossip wrong?

It was so technically true that it was painful, but Teslay figured it would do the trick. If his friend could confirm there was indeed a Harper there by that description, perhaps Teslay would then be able to find out a bit more about the situation. So he sealed the note with a dab of blue wax and his thumbprint, slipped it into a small carrying tube, and attached it to Sapho's harness. "There we go. Remember Tailor Camolien?" he asked, picturing the Tailor's lean, golden-skinned face and blue eyes. "Tailor Camolien?"

Sapho chirruped after a moment of staring at him, and unfolded his wings.

"Good. Bring this to him. See if he has a message. If so, bring the message back. Understood?"

Sapho made another chirp; Master Teslay hoped it was of confirmation. Either way, the little blue jumped off his shoulder, and went _between_ a foot above the floor.

"And now I wait," he said to himself. He idly cleaned up his desktop of various scattered scores and pen nibs, then took his klah and dragged a wooden chair over to the window. It really was amazing how noise from the courtyard drifted up to the second story, crystal clear. Teslay settled down in the chair, and drunk his warm, sweet klah slowly, sorting through what he knew of the current political climate, and what within it might prompt Benden and the Harper Hall to try to bring The Harper back to work some sort of miracle.

#

Journeyman Camolien typically hated working by the light of glows; it gave everything a greenish or bluish tint, turned subtle colors into sullen ones, and made imperfections appear that weren't actually imperfections. But, he had no choice. This was a nighttime Gather, you see, or so goldrider Tiomandi insisted. Lit by glows, and also some lights rather like the ones at Landing. So the outfit had to look stunning in the sallow light glows provided, no matter that sleep dragged down his eyelids, and he'd jabbed himself so many times with the sharp steel needle that he'd had to resort to wearing a thimble. A thimble! Because he'd managed to stab through the thick calluses on his fingers. He felt like such an Apprentice.

When a familiar little blue firelizard appeared, the Tailor didn't know if he should be relieved or irritated. It was already well past his bedtime, and although the blue landed politely on his table, well away from any of his fabric or scissors or tools, it still represented something Unknown.

"You're Teslay's, aren't you?" Camolien asked the blue. "Bloody workaholic. He needs to learn how to go to bed like a normal man, rather than worrying over things of no consequence to normal people. Really, what do they _feed_ Harpers? Every single one of them a..." And, grumbling to himself, he reached over and stroked the small blue's head, before removing the message from within the tube attached to Sapho's harness.

After reading the letter, he sighed. "And he wants me to do his spying for him. I wonder why?"

The blue chirruped.

"Are you waiting for a reply?" Camolien asked. "Sure he doesn't think I'm going to go running around in the dead of..."

Sapho watched him curiously.

"Of course he does. All right. _This_ means he pulls strings, and gets me into the Harper Hall as a costumer. I'll do it. But I bloody well better be designing frou frou for some girl-Harper before this Turn is out. I better get a Masterpiece out of it too...these goldriders have no imagination! All they want to do is look like one another, except _better_. How do you get _better_ if you don't try something _different_? You'd think weyr-women would be more adventurous than hold-women, but nooooo...!"

And with that exclamation, he sighed and got up to putter around his quarters, collecting empty bowls and mugs to bring back to the kitchens.

There were a few weyrfolk and dragonriders eating a late supper in the lower caverns, but to Camolien's eye, nobody that looked like a Harper. Camolien deposited his dishes in the appropriate spot, considered chatting someone up, and decided that really, he was just too grumpy for this. So he immediately changed his mind about helping that silly Harper Teslay, and decided to talk to people on the morrow, when he wasn't as likely to bite their heads off if they said something stupid, or criticize their clothing because they looked like a drunken wher had dressed them.

Sapho appeared in the room, flitted around near the ceiling watching him, and followed him back out when he stalked out again.

Manora was in the hallway of the guest quarters when he returned, escorting two men wherever they needed to be. One was...a visiting dragonrider. He had to do a double take, thinking at first it was the Weyrleader or maybe F'lessan. The other person following the Headwoman was a tall man with hair that really needed to be re-braided again, and, by the red star, he really, really needed some new pants too. Unless, of course, there was some weird youth style going on where your pant legs ended somewhere around your calves. He also had a worn spot going on on his right buttock, which would soon tear open if he managed to snag it on a bench, which would flash his hindquarter to all and sundry. Camolien highly doubted the young man would appreciate that happening. Young men had a lot of pride.

"You need some new pants," Camolien said.

The three of them turned around and looked at him. Camolien looked the one man up and down; he was wearing a rather nice riding jacket, but the pants? The pants looked like he'd borrowed them from his grandfather's old chest. They should be turned into rags by now.

"Excuse me?" the man said.

"He said you need new pants," the dragonrider said. "Isn't this the...third, fourth time someone in the Weaving or Tailoring crafts has told you about this?"

"Oh, you're a hopeless cause?" Camolien asked. "The kind that would wear burlap if it didn't itch so horridly?"

Manora eyed the Harper's pants too. "We can get you something from the stores, R--Harper," she said. "How have you been, Journeyman Camolien? The queenriders have been anxious to see your work."

Camolien almost brandished his oft-punctured fingers, but really, that wasn't something a Journeyman Tailor should be complaining about. So he shrugged. "They should be done in time. Do you _really_ have something in _his_ size in the stores? We don't even make pants that long for the Gather stalls." Then a light dawned...the poor man was wearing _Gather_ pants. One of those poor souls who couldn't afford the custom work, even though their particular body shape demanded it. He patted down his pockets and found a measuring string. Before the man could run away from him (like some folk had been known to do), he did a quick measure from waist to ankle, memorizing the number of knots, and then darted behind him and did a quick measure from hip to hip across the plumpest part of the Harper's buttocks (while dragonrider started to look highly amused), and then around his waist, compensating for the thick riding jacket by subtracting a few knots. "There, you're done. I'll leave them in the lower caverns for you, Manora." He glanced at the Harper's face and complexion. Tanned, blue eyes, brown hair. Earthy. "They'll be green," he said decisively. "_Not_ blue. I'm going to bed now, Manora--let me know if you need everyday wear in more strange sizes...I could use some rest from this finnicky stuff for the goldriders."

Manora laughed lightly. "Alright, Journeyman. Have a good evening."

Camolien tucked his string away, and chanted the song about knots to himself, so he would remember long enough to jot them down once he returned to his quarters. Sapho appeared in the hall again, flying back and forth above him, and followed him. Behind him, Manora and the two men turned down another corridor.

"_Gather_ pants. Poor man was wearing _gather_ pants. Whoever looks after him should be ashamed of themselves!"


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

"Robinton?"

Robinton made a purposefully indecipherable mumbling noise, hoping that it would chase the man who was sitting on the edge of the bed away. But of course, it had no effect on F'lon at all, and the sagging presence on the edge of his mattress didn't disappear. So Robinton rolled over under the furs, his head throbbing unmercifully at his temples, and gave his friend a baleful glare. "What do you want, F'lon? I was sleeping." He rubbed his gritty eyes and wondered why a tunnel snake had decided it was necessary to excrete in his mouth sometime during the night.

"Well, you need to get up anyway. And I wanted to apologize. For insinuating that you have a lousy love life in front of the Weyrleaders and the Masterharper. And also, that female Harper. That was pretty ill-mannered of me--I don't really know what I was thinking. I can't believe I just left you there all by yourself!"

"...you were there with me when we spoke with them," Robinton said in confusion.

"No! I meant, when I left you at the Hall. I'm thinking, we're in a totally different era, so who knows _what_ could have happened to you? I at least have Simanith around if I end up in a bad spot, an angry dragon scares the wits out of anyone in their right mind, and I know how to use this knife..."

Robinton wearily kicked off his furs and sat up. "I'm hardly a helpless babe, F'lon, and besides, they were quite nice to me. Especially since I was more than a little drunk at the time. But how does this have to do with your derogatory comments about my love life?"

"I'm sorry for both things, is all. And, also, that we got hit by lightening."

"_I_ didn't, you did. It set your head on fire; I put it out with my bare hands."

"It was? You did? I don't recall that!"

Robinton chuckled a little, although it made his head throb a little more. "You were a little dazed at the time."

"I guess I owe you three apologies, and one debt of gratitude, then."

"Four apologies; you _did_ wake me up just now," Robinton grumbled.

"That doesn't count; if _I_ hadn't been the one to, I think Weyrwoman Lessa would be here instead. And," F'lon added, hastily looking over his shoulder to make sure nobody had entered the room to spy on them, "Frankly, I think _that_ would have been worse. The more I observe her, the scarier she is. I don't _ever _want to get her well and truly angry at me. She has this _presence_..."

"...she's as tall as my bellybutton, F'lon," Robinton said. "As long as you treat her with respect, I don't know that there's anything to be _scared_ of..."

"Have you _seen_ her dragon? Ramoth?"

"No, not really. It's dark at night, you know."

"Ah, I won't say any more then. You'll understand everything when you _do_ see her."

Robinton sighed, and slid out of bed. "Have you ever considered that maybe you have a phobia about Weyrwomen that might be affecting your judgment?" Robinton asked, as he found the pants and shirt he'd slung over a chair the night before, and pulled them on with a rustling of cloth. "Considering that you were thrown out of the Weyr in the first place by Weyrwoman Carola?"

F'lon narrowed his eyes. "I _don't_ have a phobia. Being _fostered_ out of the Weyr is a good thing, it broadens your horizons, keeps us in touch with the Holds; it's how I met you, after all."

Robinton held up his hands. "All right, all right. Let's not start off the day with arguing. You still owe me a fourth apology, though. I accept the other three, in the meantime."

"What about the debt of gratitude?" F'lon asked.

"I'll save that for a rainy day," Robinton said with a grin. "You can bring me to some small hold on the coast that unfortunately has a tragic lack of menfolk, and I'll show you why I've never had to resort to physically manhandling women into my lap so that I could spout bad poetry in their ears."

F'lon threw back his head and laughed. "That sounds like a plan, my friend! You let me know when you want to go do that!" Then he grimaced. "Ow, why did you make me _laugh_...?" he added, touching the side of his head gingerly. "Winehead isn't very fun."

"It's our bodies forcing us to do everything in moderation. If winehead was fun, everyone would be drunk all the time and nothing would ever get done. And the toilets would be very crowded. You said the Weyrwoman wanted us?" Robinton asked, once he was dressed.

"Yes. We're to meet her by the lake. She said we should bring our things--your gitar and the like."

"Are we leaving Benden?" Robinton asked.

"I don't know; I guess we'll see. Could be she just wants a tune."

Robinton grunted at the unlikeliness of that, and finished braiding his hair so that it was out of his face.

The guest quarters that they'd been tucked into were on the ground level of the Weyr, so it was only a brisk walk across the bowl to get to the lake. Halfway there, a queen descended, and landed on the bank; then a tiny speck on her back slid off to the ground.

Robinton stopped, and rubbed his eyes, which felt bleary. "Wait..." The perspective seemed...a little bit off.

F'lon laughed. "That's Ramoth."

"...that's one magnificent specimen of a dragon," Robinton finally admitted in awe, once his brain adjusted to the fact that not all of Ramoth's apparent size was due to Weyrwoman Lessa being a tiny little thing.

A few moments later, Simanith landed as well. Simanith was no small bronze, and his presence just reinforced how _large_ the queen next to him was.

"See?" F'lon said.

"Indeed."

Once they were in range of the Weyrwoman, Robinton gave her a respectful bow--something he'd been too drunk, distracted, half-frightened and disoriented to do the night before. F'lon, too, acknowledged her seniority appropriately, and if Robinton was reading her right, she seemed pleased well enough by this.

Weyrwoman Lessa was dressed in full riding leathers, subtly different from the ones he was used to seeing on weyrfolk. He wondered if it had to do with the Ninth Pass being in progress, or if it was just a shift in fashion. She gave both of them an appraising look, then nodded. "I see that you've recovered your manners," she said.

"My mother will be wroth with me that it took so long, Weyrwoman," Robinton said meekly.

Lessa raised an eyebrow at F'lon. "And you?"

"His mother will be wroth with me that it took so long, Weyrwoman," F'lon said.

Robinton glanced at his friend. "Has my mother _ever_ been wroth with you?"

"Yes. And I have to say, it's worse than my father being upset with me," F'lon said, surprisingly candidly.

"Huh," Lessa said, obviously suspicious that they were acting up again. But when neither young man said anything more, she got on with business. "We are going to meet the Harpers at a small outpost north of here; we'll be flying straight. I'm told, bronzerider, that Simanith should avoid going _between_ for a couple of days, but should be fine with ordinary flying. Is this true?"

F'lon opened his mouth to speak.

"Good," Lessa said, nodding to Simanith.

F'lon closed his mouth and cocked his head to the side at his dragon.

"Robinton, you will fly with me. F'lon, you and Simanith follow behind. You can attach your gitar, Harper, with the luggage straps there," and Lessa, turning to stride back to her dragon, waved her hand at the harness behind the front riding positions.

"Right," F'lon said. "We'll be right behind you, Weyrwoman."

Robinton turned to look at the gigantic golden queen dragon, who, surprisingly, seemed to be eyeing him right back. He bowed deeply to her. "It is an honor to journey with you, Ramoth," he said, realizing that he'd never ridden upon any queen before, much less the biggest one he'd ever met.

_Yes, it is,_ a voice said in his head casually. Soprano, a slightly deeper and richer echo of Lessa's voice. Then she crouched for both Lessa and himself to mount.

Robinton quickly strapped down his guitar so that it wouldn't get rattled about on the journey, and then donned the flying leathers he'd brought with him and seated himself behind the Weyrwoman, before strapping himself in. A large ridge separated him from Lessa, and he gripped it firmly (but hopefully not tightly enough to pain the dragon).

_A firm grip will not hurt her,_ someone reassured him. Lessa, who had been climbing up in front of him, paused and gave him a long look.

"Weyrwoman?" he asked.

"Simanith is correct," she sad, after a pause. "Grip as tightly as you need to."

Robinton felt slightly awkward and exposed for some reason, as if he'd unintentionally committed blasphemy without knowing it, or even meaning to. But Lessa strapped herself in without further comment, and a few moments later she warned him that they were going to launch. Then Ramoth crouched even lower for a moment, her weight on her hindquarters, before launching them powerfully towards the sky.

Once aloft, Ramoth circled the Weyr below once, waiting for Simanith and F'lon to reach the proper altitude, and then both dragons turned northeast.

The Weyrwoman did not try to speak to him as they gained altitude, like F'lon was wont to do. Robinton had a few questions, mostly about where and why they were leaving the Weyr, but it didn't seem like he should ask about something that he would figure out soon enough once they arrived at their destination. So he sat back, and ventured to gaze down at the world unfurling below them; mountain tops capped in snow, with green valleys in between. Fields of crops, and fields for wherries and runners, all of them small moving dots to him at this high altitude. They were flying high enough above them that the herds didn't seem to panic and stampede at the dragons soaring overhead.

There was also a road, twisting between fields and out of a valley; as they flew, they seemed to cross back and forth over it a few times, and Robinton guessed that they were following it, but as a dragon would--no need to zig this way and that to avoid trees and irregularities in the landscape that caused a road to twist and turn.

Eventually, Ramoth tilted in a familiar-feeling landing spiral, and Robinton decided that they were going to stop at the small cot hold down below. There was already two dragons there, brown and bronze, and while Robinton didn't recognize the dragons by sight, it wasn't a far stretch to guess that Weyrleader F'lar and Brownrider F'nor were the riders of those two dragons, making the dragons themselves Mnementh and Canth. The only question was if the two Harpers Robinton had met were here as well.

That question was soon answered. Ramoth landed them on the road surprisingly lightly and delicately for a dragon of her bulk, and once they were settled on the ground, Lessa began unstrapping herself, and Robinton followed suit. A few moments later, he was standing on solid ground again, and slinging his guitar case over his shoulder. Lessa went into the cot hold. Behind them a few dragonlengths Simanith and F'lon had landed, and F'lon was in the process of dismounting.

"Weyrwoman Lessa, Master Robinton," the Harper woman Menolly called to them, ducking out of the small cothold to greet them as she did so.

"Er," Robinton began.

Menolly came up beside him, and noticed his discomfiture. "Sorry. _Journeyman_. But isn't it comforting to know that you'll make Master?" she asked him mischievously. "All that studying of decisively _non_-musical things will eventually pay off!" Her tone was knowing. The non-musical aspects of the Hall could sometimes be frustrating for Harpers that were deeply interested in music, who usually couldn't care less about politics and teaching and all of those other irritating things.

"I suppose it's comforting," Robinton said. Not all Journeymen became Masters. "If a little disconcerting in the manner of which I am informed of it. As it were, I do appreciate being addressed as 'Journeyman' if a title is necessary; to do otherwise would be a little conceited of me, by the standards of my own little world. Given my own little world is built upon a rather shaky foundation right now..." and he gave a little laugh.

"Does the world exist because we think it exists?" F'lon asked, coming up to stand next to Robinton. He stripped his riding gloves and goggles off, and undid a few buttons of his riding jacket.

"That's surprisingly philosophical for someone suffering from winehead," Robinton told him.

"Not really. I stole the line from you. I'm not smart enough to know what it means," and he winked at them mischievously.

Robinton's brow furrowed. "...I don't recall saying that. When did I say that?"

"I woke you up from some dream, and you directed the question at me. It was a turn or so ago. You spout a lot of weird theories on the edge of sleep. It's a hoot and a half, what comes out of your mouth at those times." He shook his head and grinned in a charming fashion.

Robinton stared at him.

"I'm sorry," F'lon said. "What _were_ you two talking about?" he asked with a grin.

"The shaky foundations of my own little world," Robinton said.

The dragonrider grinned wider. "Oh, so your world is shaken, is it? Ha...it's strange day when the things you say are puerile, and the things I say are profound. Usually it's the other way around." Despite the potential insult in his words, his tone was teasing.

"...I thought you stole your profound thought from me. That would make me both puerile and profound."

F'lon raised an eyebrow and looked dubious. "If _that's_ how you want to think of yourself..."

"Well, no, not really. Master Menolly--do you care to distract us with something of substance?"

"Oh no, I'm having way too much fun watching you to snipe at each other," Menolly said and smiled. One of her hands was scratching the eyeridges of the little queen on her shoulder.

F'lon gave a short laugh.

"If it wouldn't defeat the purpose of us coming here," came the voice of Masterharper Sebell, "I'd consider putting you two up on a stage."

Journeyman Harper and bronzerider both turned around, and politely acknowledged the man and his rank. Master Sebell looked at Robinton and quirked an eyebrow, but Robinton didn't understand what the Masterharper was trying to convey, so he dropped his gaze and bowed. When he looked up again, he thought he saw a ghost of unease cross the man's face, but then the man beckoned to them.

"Are you two feeling better today?" Master Sebell asked.

"I'd say we were actually feeling _better_ yesterday, Masterharper," F'lon replied. "But I suppose we're more...clear-minded, today," and his tone was rueful.

"That's understandable," the Harper said. "Hopefully the headaches will pass soon. Or there might be some felis around here, somewhere." Then the man beckoned again, and the two young men, along with Master Menolly, followed him into the cot hold.

The cot hold had a rather martial air, Robinton noted, when they entered. It was only two stories high, and furnished sparsely and plainly. There were no tapestries on the wall, no dried flowers or herbs anywhere, no rugs, and very little color. In fact, it was rather uncertain if the cothold was actively occupied on a regular basis by anyone who wasn't a transient. The front room held a hearth, and a stone table with cold, unpadded stone benches on either side. On one wall there were weapons racks, and on the other, strange metal contraptions the size of a backpack, with odd hoses and nozzles. Robinton didn't have the foggiest of what they were there for, or what their purpose was. The scent of firestone lingered in the air, although it was stale, and mixed with something acrid, almost as if a Smith occasionally came here to do his work, although if there was a forge, it wasn't in this front room. Robinton momentarily wondered if he should be concerned about the martial nature of this cothold, when the dragonriders could have brought them anywhere, but then banished the thought from his mind as immaterial, because at this late date wondering if they were going to be locked up somewhere seemed too little, too late.

At the table, F'lar and F'nor were already seated, conversing quietly about something. Lessa was at the rack with the metal contraptions; she seemed to be checking them over for something, out of reflex. Sebell slid the metal door of the cot hold shut on its tracks behind them, and motioned for everyone who wasn't sitting to sit. Everyone except for Lessa obeyed, or rather, decided to comply; Lessa, however, was still occupied with the metal things on the one wall.

"We re-convened this morning, the five of us," Sebell began, addressing the two young men. "And to quickly come to the heart of the matter without any dancing about it, we've decided to request that you abstain from any unneeded contact with our _when_."

_Ah_, Robinton thought. _It's nice that he's vaguely trying to ask us what is within their right to demand._

"What if we say no?" F'lon asked.

Robinton scowled at him. "That's a rhetorical question," he told the others.

F'lon raised an eyebrow. "It is?"

"I'd much rather be somewhat free in a secluded area that's likely not well accessible to most people than enclosed in a small windowless cell," Robinton told his friend. "Really, we're messing with time here, if by accident. It would be criminally incompetent to say, 'Oh, you don't _want_ to? Well then, just go your merry way; maybe things will just turn out alright in the end!'."

F'lon laughed. "Point taken. So, rhetorical question...what if we say no?" he asked the others again.

"We lock you two in very small cells guarded by a starving watch wher," Sebell said, an evil glint in his eye. "And feed you nothing but gruel."

"See?" Robinton said. "I don't want to be eaten by a wher. The menu doesn't seem too appetizing either. Except maybe for the wher."

"In seems on par with the sort of things you cook," F'lon said. "You could make gruel. Probably. Maybe."

"I don't eat my own cooking," Robinton pointed out, to a few chuckles.

"So you agree to our request?" Lessa asked, bringing them back on topic.

"Our answer is probably yes," F'lon said, giving Robinton a look. "But what's the full terms?"

"This cot hold is used by our ground crews after threadfall; it's only accessible by a road from the Weyr, or by dragon, so any visitors you would have would have to fly in, or go through the Weyr to reach here. So yes, it is secluded," F'lar said. "We'd request that you stay here for the duration of Simanith's recovery, and during Simanith's training in going _between_ times. You can hunt, fish, do whatever until then. You won't be allowed into the Weyr proper unless it is an emergency, and anyone coming here out here will be vetted by us first. Thread will not fall in this area for another two and a half sevendays, so you won't need to worry about that."

"Will it just be Robinton and Simanith and me?" F'lon asked.

"If we have your word that you won't hare off on Simanith, then we won't have anyone stationed here on a regular basis," Lessa said. "I would be coming by once a day however with F'nor's mate Brekke to check on Simanith, and later by myself to teach."

"Speaking preemptively here," Robinton said. "I realize you don't want us to have contact with this _when_, so I assume a bunch of sheet music to learn is out of the question, but do you think I could get a slate or something?" Robinton asked. "I suspect I won't be much more than a useless lump when F'lon and Simanith train with you, Weyrwoman. But I can keep myself occupied with a slate."

"Certainly," Sebell said promptly. "And I'm sure there's some sheet music we can find that won't destroy the universe if you read it," he said with a smile.

"Oh good. Thank you. I'd hate to destroy the universe by playing the wrong music," Robinton said humorously. "It would be rude of me."

"So we agree?" F'lon asked Robinton.

"The terms are reasonable," Robinton said. "But then I essentially already said that earlier."

"Alright," F'lon said. "I don't really want Robinton to be eaten by a wher either. So I agree."

"Very kind of you," Robinton said.

"I'm a generous guy," F'lon replied, while Harper Menolly seemed to be struggling not to show her amusement. Lessa looked resignedly tolerant, F'lar unfathomable, and F'nor inscrutable.

"This cot hold isn't really equipped for even temporary residence, so we'll be bringing over some necessities today," Lessa said. Then she paused and looked around. "It could also use a good scrubbing. Come with me, and I'll get you situated."

Robinton caught the Harper woman Menolly making a wide-eyed horrified look at him, before she flashed him a smile. He wasn't sure if she was laughing at, or providing sympathy over, the Weyrwoman's sudden implication that they were going to help her scrub the place down. He blinked, quirked an eyebrow at her, and rose to follow the diminutive Weyrwoman out of the room. F'lon caught on that they were supposed to be leaving, bowed to the other men in the room, and scrambled after.

Lessa gave them a quick tour of the cot hold; one room was being somewhat used for storage at one end of it, but there would be enough room to fit F'lon and Robinton and a bed or two into it, presumably, and, proving Robinton's theory correct, Lessa found some cleaning supplies and brooms, before abandoning them in the room that would become their sleeping quarters once cleaned out.

"I think this is punishment for being so crass as to travel between _times_ drunk," F'lon said, while picking up a broom and looking at it as if he didn't quite know what to do with it.

"Indeed. Do you need me to show you how to use that?"

F'lon swiftly swung the broom around to hit Robinton with the straw end of it, but the Harper dodged easily. "I was a weyrling once--believe me, I'm a Master at wielding brooms!"

"Well then, Mastersweeper, you do what you know best. I'm going to see if I can organize some of this stuff so we can actually fit some sort of sleeping accommodations in here once someone brings them in."

"I'll laugh when you get everything all arranged perfectly to move a bed in here and they come back with sleeping bags," F'lon told him.

Robinton made a face. "Shush. Get to work."

"Since when does a mere Harper Journeyman tell the Mastersweeper what to do?" F'lon intoned imperiously. But he wasn't as good of an actor as Robinton, and his facade quickly broke and the two young men began laughing wildly for a long while. "Oh boy. This is going to be interesting," F'lon said, wiping tears from his eyes. Then he caught Robinton's gaze again, and they both broke into laughter again. The jokes weren't all _that_ funny, but it perhaps eased the tension they felt at being in such a strange situation. "Alright, alright. Let's get this stuff sorted first. I won't be able to sweep until it's out of the way anyway."

"As the Mastersweeper commands," Robinton said snidely. This time F'lon's swat with the broom connected.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

Camolien was nursing a cup of klah sometime the next mor--well, actually it was noon. Drat. So much to do, and so little time. He stopped nursing the klah, gulping it down instead, and stared at his creation for the goldrider in disgust, before striding over to the scrap of paper he'd scribbled down that Harper's measurements on...

Oh. Oh! Well, _shards_. He had a mind like a sieve. He'd _met_ a Harper last night, and Master Teslay was looking for a Harper in particular...

Camolien searched through his desk and threw some stray scraps of cloth into a bin, and found the note. Teslay's firelizard Sapho was nowhere to be found on the other hand, so he probably went back empty-clawed to his master sometime in the night. But the note...tall, dark haired, blue eyed...

"Well, I wouldn't be able to find my nose if it wasn't attached to my face," the man said to himself. Then he got a pencil and scribbled a reply underneath Teslay's words.

_Yes, your Journeyman friend is here. I'm making him new pants. In _green_, mind you. Tell him he has no fashion sense. Also, now you owe me some very good words on my behalf when I apply for that costuming position at your Hall._

_~ C_

He set the note aside, thinking that Sapho would probably re-appear sometime during the day to nag him again, and ventured out to find some suitable green fabric. Pity that people thought green was a color of ill omen, but at least it made the fabric cheap and available.

#

"I never would have picked you as one having a subversive taste in music," Masterharper Sebell said to Master Teslay.

"It's possible I spent too much time in Landing," Teslay agreed carefully. "Listening to some of that music is like discovering that some people don't speak in words."

"Well, as I understand it, some people don't. It's called different 'languages'," Sebell said. "Quite interesting, actually..." Then he cleared his throat. "I don't think it will come as a surprise to you that I can't in good conscience give you the resources you need for this production."

Master Teslay was quiet for a moment. He'd been looking forward to a good attempt to persuade the Masterharper to approve this one, but after last night, the focus of his thoughts had changed and now it was like herding firelizards, trying to put together a pitch about _music_, when he was wondering what sort of strange political game _this_ Masterharper was involved in. What had happened to force them to such desperate measures? Or was Master Sebell in as much thrall to the man's memory as half the planet? Teslay forced his mouth to move, and answer the man. "The music isn't intended to _shock_, actually, but pave the road for presenting all the other technologies we've re-discovered to the general population. Something to ease the integration." Of course, if it ever got out that Masterharper Robinton was alive and well and running around on this man's command, they'd likely have a far worse problem in the short term than ordinary people becoming confused and fearful of technology. The man was truly a legend now that he'd passed on.

"Yes, I saw your note. But the involvement of the Smiths will make the cost of production skyrocket, and I can't say for sure that...that music of this type won't start a riot at a Gather. And if that happened, Lord Groghe or whichever Lord that was hosting the Gather would be well within their rights to demand compensation, on behalf of himself and of any other Crafters that got caught in the crossfire, which, added to the already high production costs, would cause this production to run a very high risk of financially ruining the Hall."

"So I am prohibited from producing it?" Master Teslay said distractedly, jerking his thoughts back to the topic at hand, thinking he understood what the Masterharper was saying between the lines.

Sebell hesitated. "If you find Crafters willing to donate their time and materials, I will not forbid it, if you wish to go forward with production on your own time. But neither will I exempt you from your assigned duties as a Master to make time for it, nor will I shield you from any backlash you may get from the traditionalists in the Hall, should you succeed in producing it."

"But you will not forbid it outright?" he prodded the Craftsmaster.

"The Hall needs people not afraid to explore new ideas and themes, just as much as it needs traditionalists to give people the comfort of the familiar that they require to be secure in their lives. That being said...this is already pushing the line of acceptability. Use your good judgment, and I won't feel the need to interfere with the soup you're making here, to use a culinary term."

"Alright," Teslay said, bowing his head and accepting the restrictions for now, since arguing would only make his position worse, particularly when his thoughts were so scattered, and anxiety was starting to dog him. Then there was a flapping of wings, and Sapho alighted in his shoulder, greeting the Masterharper's queen firelizard Kimi with an appropriately polite chirp. The queen lazily opened one eyelid to look at him, chirped once in response, and went back to sleep.

"You have a message," Sebell said.

Teslay felt a chill creep up his spine even though it was an obvious observation, but hid it by nodding amiably. "I know a Tailor who wants to be posted here, Masterharper. He's probably asking for a good word," Teslay said. He did not retrieve the firelizard's message tube, however. Sapho, alert to his moods, made a little inquiring sound, and Teslay tried to calm himself and the firelizard both before their agitation became visible to the room.

"We should have a spot open up in a few months, if I recall correctly. Tell him to send us a few designs and samples; if we like them, we'll speak with the Mastertailor to see if he can be posted here."

Teslay smiled. "I'll let him know."

Sebell nodded, and gathered the score that was scattered over his desk together, and handed them back to him. "Good, good. Let me know if you do get any volunteers for it; I'd like to hear the music as you intend it to be heard, and I suspect I'm having trouble reading between the lines on this, judging from the key you have at the back explaining your non-standard terms and markings."

Teslay grimaced. "Many of the, ah, electronic sounds have no proper counterpart, although it is very possible or probable that I managed to snuff up the transcription on the more traditional parts too; I never expected to go into composition, and I daresay I slept through many of those lessons as an Apprentice," he said with a slight laugh. "Master Domick will get his revenge on me when I ask which of his Journeymen would be up to providing some remedial tutoring."

"Oh yes he will," Sebell said with a grin. Then he sighed. "It's nearly noon! I admit to being famished; will you join me as I walk down to the meal?"

"I have a few things to work on, Masterharper," Teslay said quickly. "I think I'll be taking my meal in my quarters today." But he rose with the Masterharper, and followed him out the door.

"Well then, I'll make note of that to Silvina," Sebell said, locking the door to his office and quarters behind him.

"That would be much appreciated, Masterharper."

"It's no bother. You have a good afternoon." And Sebell gave him a friendly clout on the shoulder, before turning to stride down the hall towards the afternoon meal.

#

_If I hate being stressed so much, why do I put myself in these sorts of positions?_ Teslay thought to himself once he escaped the Masterharper's quarters and clutches with Sapho and, hopefully, a message from Camolien. There was a chance that the note was incriminating, and his heart was racing as if he'd participated in a sprint during some Gather. He hated the anxiety, and the feeling of fear that seeped through his veins lest he was discovered by one of those flashes of insight that men in power often had.

But really...finding a way to almost bring a man back from the dead was just _wrong_. The world _needed_ someone to keep an eye on the people in power.

He wanted to rush back to his quarters to read the message, but knew if he did that, he'd be cooped up in there until his furious thinking subsided. If he stormed around the Hall in furious thought, someone would wonder, and really, he didn't want the Masterharper to think he was bent out of shape over his music any more than he wanted the man to know what he was _really_ up to. So before braving the Tailor's findings, if any, he quickly grabbed a pot of klah from the kitchens, and amazingly a plate that was already being prepared, and, fortification in hand, retreated back to his temporary lair in the guest quarters.

Sapho was starting to pick up his anxiety again, so once he had secluded himself, he spent several moments calming down the twitchy little beast. Poor thing didn't need to jerk around and shiver on account of _his_ moods. Only then, once Teslay had calmed himself and the little blue down, and taken a few stomach pleasing bites of food and a gulp of klah, he extracted the message that the firelizard has brought back to him.

A few moments later, he kindled a small fire in the hearth, and burned the note to ashes.

"Confirmed. Stupid, stupid, _stupid_ people..." Although the fact that Camolien was making a new pair of pants for Masterharper _Robinton_ without even knowing he was doing so--or at least, not letting on in the note--was by far one of the funniest things that Master Teslay could remember happening recently. The poor, ambitious, rank-climbing man--if only he knew!

And, a thought dawned on Master Teslay...if Camolien was making pants for the Harper, wouldn't he also perhaps be delivering them as well? And if that was so, wouldn't he be able to slip in a note with them?

But...what would Teslay _say_ to Master Robinton? And what _age_ was the man anyway? He couldn't assume anything when messing around with time. Was he Masterharper yet on his own timeline? Would he have apprentices yet? If not, perhaps he would seriously consider Master Teslay's thoughts. But if he had already Apprenticed Sebell on or Menolly, there was a large chance that Master Robinton would essentially rat him out if he provided his name or any sort of identification. But on the other hand, if Robinton didn't know who Sebell was, why would he trust someone who didn't even provide his name?

And...how long did it take to make a pair of pants for a supposedly simple Journeyman?

Teslay leapt to his feet again, and grabbed a sheet of parchment off of a shelf. Then he returned it, since it was awfully nice parchment, and found a scrap of paper--how ironic that something rather priceless not ten turns ago was now used so casually, he thought vaguely to himself, before finding a writing stick to scribble things down with. _When you deliver the pants, can you take him a note for me?_ he asked. _If so, let me know when you plan to make the delivery, and I'll have Sapho here bring you the note beforehand._ There. Perhaps the man would then delay things a bit, giving _him_ a little time to mull things over..."Come, my little man, I've another task for you," he said to his firelizard. The firelizard gave him what might be an indulgent look or maybe just a look of indigestion given the chunk of richly spiced meat he'd just stolen from Teslay's luncheon pie, and complied, and a few moments later, another note in Teslay's disjointed score was in progress.

#

"You again. That was quick. If the Harper boy was female, I'd suspect your Master has fallen in love," Camolien said, when a familiar blue firelizard popped into his quarters and made amazed sounds that Camolien was indeed there. Silly little thing. Camolien bribed the firelizard out of its flightiness and down to his desk with a bit of fruit. Camolien had no idea if the firelizard was short-sighted or just had a strange taste in foods for a firelizard, but it worked in luring the firelizard down, and shortly he had the bit of paper out of the tube.

"Mmm," he said after he had read it. "If you wanted to send a note, why didn't you include it, you daft Harper? I swear, you _are_ sweet on the man or something. Just write the blasted note." And Camolien turned the paper over and wrote a patronizing reply. Then, since his mind was on the subject, he picked up the half-made pair of pants he had started working on earlier, and began working on them again. He'd finish them by this evening, just to mess with Teslay. Otherwise they'd be passing notes back and forth forever like two Apprentices lovesick over the same girl. "Here you go, Sapho. No need to take it back quick; go have a little vacation on a beach or something. Take some time off."

The firelizard gave him a curious look, as if it didn't understand him, and then launched into the air and disappeared.

"Right, then. I wish I had a timer..."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

It was actually Lessa who brought Robinton a slate and chalk two days later; the slate was clean and new, housed in a metal frame, and had a hole bored in one corner, through which a cord was strung. The cord had a little bag with the Mining Hall stamp on it, and within the bag was several newly-made sticks of chalk. Some were in colors other than white, which was interesting. Robinton accepted it solemnly (his entire body was sore from the work she'd had the two of them do yesterday to make the cothold more livable), and watched as she gathered up F'lon and Simanith for some lessons on going _between_ times, and left.

"I'm bored already," Robinton said to himself once the two dragons had vanished out of the sky, while looking at his blank slate. Then he shrugged and investigated the sticks of chalk in their bag. "I'll be quite the Seer when I get back home; Thread is coming, and, oh yes, we'll be able to put pigments into slate chalk in the future! Isn't that _astounding_?"

There was nobody to answer his dripping sarcasm, so he wandered back into the cothold and retrieved his gitar, parchments, a pen, and a bottle of ink. "Ah, well. Perhaps I'll get some sheet music tomorrow. For now, I will have to be content with attempting to put this all to music. It's a pity lyrics are quite out of the question. Or perhaps a blessing; how could I ever put words to this saga so that people from my time would understand? Or perhaps I should dress it up as a fantasy, an improbable tale. Of course, I'd need some suitable moral or point, otherwise it's just a story..." And he settled himself down outside under a tree, pulling out his gitar as he did so, already lost to the melodies beginning to unwind inside his mind.

The sun had risen quite high in the sky by the time Lessa, F'lon, and their dragons had returned. Lessa and Ramoth didn't land; instead they watched F'lon and Simanith from on high for a while, before disappearing _between_. F'lon dismounted, spotted Robinton under his tree, and immediately made a beeline towards him, shedding riding gear carelessly into the grass.

"How did it go?" Robinton asked as F'lon wadded up his riding jacket and collapsed onto the ground, using the garment as a pillow.

"Don't ask," F'lon groaned.

"Well, unfortunately I can't go _between_ time and un-ask it, now that it's been asked," Robinton joked.

"Well, don't look at me, because neither can I!" F'lon said mournfully.

"The lessons went that bad?" Robinton said in sympathy.

"Yes. She's worse than Carola. What did you do with yourself all morning?"

Robinton showed F'lon his slate.

"I'm no Harper, but I see four notes there."

"That is correct. I didn't get too far." Robinton let out a melodramatic, gusty sigh.

"There's also a lot of erased smudges. Didn't anyone ever tell you not to use your shirt to erase slates?"

"They didn't give me an eraser," Robinton said, tugging on the hem of his shirt to inspect it. It puffed colored dust when he did so. "So I made do. At least I didn't try to lick the slate clean."

F'lon laughed. "You had one of those in your classes when you were little too?"

"I think there's always one or two. Just like there's always an Apprentice or two that sniffs the varnish."

"The varnish for what?" F'lon inquired.

"Instrument-making. It has fumes that do strange things to your head if you get too many of them. Someone always sniffs it on purpose and starts to hallucinate, then they end up in the Healer wings for a few days."

F'lon laughed. "That reminds me. Did you ever hear the story about the Journeyman Smith who specialized in chemistry who changed Crafts and became a Chef?"

"No, and it sounds more interesting than this," and Robinton threw the slate and chalk into the grass. "Tell me."

#

Later that afternoon, Robinton felt belatedly ashamed for using his shirt as an eraser when the Tailor they had met at the Weyr the other day came down the road to meet them, package in hand. Robinton was typically fairly oblivious to what he wore, aside from the occasions when his role on stage as a Harper required that he wear a costume of some sort, but there was nothing worse than a Tailor to make you feel acutely aware of exactly what you were wearing and the hideous state it was in. Journeyman Camolien eyed Robinton up and down, sniffed, and handed him a puffy package. "Clothing for you and the dragonrider. If you put on one of the pairs of pants and they don't reach your ankles, you have the _wrong_ pair of pants on. Give it to the dragonrider. Unless you _want_ to look like a fool in Gather pants. And for Faranath's sake, if you don't have the marks to purchase custom-made pants, check up the leg of the Gather pants for extra cloth; sometimes we'll sew a couple of inches of leg up inside, and even a Harper should be able to rip out that seam and let the legs out so they're the right length. If that fails, just wear a pair of short britches to the Gather and _someone_ will take pity on you and do a quick and cheap custom job, if only to cover your long hairy thighs up as quickly as possible."

F'lon began to laugh behind them. Robinton ignored it, and thanked the Tailor for the package and the cranky advice.

"You should be able to retire those clothes to slate-duty full time now," the Tailor added flicking his hands at Robinton's untucked shirt-hem, then waved goodbye and began the long walk back to the Weyr.

"Goodbye," Robinton offered politely to the man's back.

After he had left, F'lon came up to stand beside Robinton. "Is it just me, or do you find Tailors a bit creepy?"

"How so?" Robinton asked, tucking the package under his arm.

"Well, every Craft teaches its members to size up a situation in some way. But I think Tailoring is the only Craft that teaches its members to look at people as if they have no clothing on." He grinned.

Robinton threw back his head and laughed. "You know, I think you're right."

"Are you going to change into those now?" F'lon asked, flicking a finger at the package.

Robinton shook his head. "Why dirty something up that I'll only wear for a little while? It's almost sunset. Speaking of that, and the fresh provisions they brought us the other day--who's cooking tonight!"

"Whoever gets hungriest first. I'm going to bathe in that stream; that Weyrwoman makes me break out in a cold sweat."

Robinton thought of the petite goldrider again, and shook his head. "You have a phobia, my friend."

"I _do not_."

"I'm afraid you do," Robinton teased. "She's as small and cute as a dragon's ear, and here you are, shaking in your trews."

F'lon looked at the Harper. "Dragons don't have ears. And if they did, they wouldn't be _small_. You aren't sweet on the Benden Weyrwoman, are you?"

Robinton laughed. "As long as she doesn't come bearing gifts of Benden wine, I'd say no."

"And if she does?"

"I'll be anything she wants me to be if I can have a glass. The Benden Weyrleaders probably have access to some very nice vintages. The best of the best. They didn't bring us anything to drink with the provisions, did you know?"

"I don't see why they would waste perfectly good Benden wine on one lousy Journeyman Harper and a random bronzerider," F'lon said. "Also...we arrived here drunk. They probably don't want to repeat that."

"We had good reason to be drunk; coming here was just an accident. Not a single skin of wine, Benden or otherwise, or even a local brew or anything. It's quite horrible."

"Is there klah?" F'lon inquired.

"Yes."

"That's drinkable."

"Technically."

F'lon snorted and punched Robinton in the arm. "Then drink that. And stop whining. I'll be back after I take a bath." And he gathered up bits and pieces of his riding gear from the ground, and vanished behind the cothold in the direction of the stream.

Robinton sighed, and with the thought of klah on his mind, decided that he would be the one cooking this evening. Starting with a pot of klah.

#

Later that night, after their meal had been finished, the dishes washed and put away, and F'lon was already dead asleep on his bed in the room that was their bedroom, Robinton shucked his own clothes in preparation to crawl into the other bed. He threw them on top of the small rather rickety bound-reed dresser, next to the package that the Tailor had brought them. The package caught his eye, so he undid the twine that held it closed, removed the rough burlap cloth, and found a couple of pairs of clothes. The first shirt he held up seemed to be for F'lon, so he put it to one side and looked through the rest of it. He found three shirts that seemed to have arms long enough for him, and three out of six pairs of pants that seemed long enough for him. Two were green, one was brown. He held each up to his waist to quickly check the size, and noted with surprise that there were pockets on the rump of all three. Not that he'd ever say no to pockets, but it seemed strange to put them where you'd sit on the contents of them. Perhaps it was a fashion thing, meant to draw one's eye to your rear end.

He laughed softly to himself at that.

As he folded the clothing up into two piles--his and F'lon's--he noted that one of the green pairs of pants rustled a bit. He groped at the buttoned pocket, glad F'lon wasn't awake to make fun of him, and a moment later withdrew a small folded letter on _paper_ of all things, sealed with a nondescript blob of blue wax that had had no seal or fingerprint or anything to verify the sender embossed into it. His name was on front, written in something other than ink, which smudged the tiniest bit when he rubbed a thumb against it. The Ninth Pass really was reinventing the wheel, wasn't it? He wondered if it was some sort of super-thin chalk stick that had been used, given his experiences with the slate earlier that day.

Putting that thought away for later (maybe he could ask Lessa or one of the Harpers if he saw them again; it seemed a small enough question), he cracked the wax seal, opened the letter, and sat down on his bed.

_Master Robinton --_

_I hope this letter finds you well and in good health. If not, tell the Tailor and we'll see what we can do._

_- T_

Robinton flipped the note over, and even held it up to the glows to see if there was another message watermarked or something so that a casual glance wouldn't catch it, but it seemed that all the letter held was that cryptic message. If the handwriting hadn't been all wrong for Tuck, he would have suspected one of _those_ Harpers trying to contact him, but he didn't recognize this particular hand.

But...if Tuck was alive in this _when_, he would be an old man, with Apprentices of his own. It was possible that Tuck had arthritis or the shakes, and would have assigned someone else to write the note. So Robinton pulled his pants back on and wandered downstairs to light a small fire and conduct a few more tests with various ingredients from the kitchen just to ensure he hadn't missed something.

He hadn't. Not unless they'd reinvented the wheel here too and were using a technique that he had never been taught. But that would be shoddy research, applying techniques that came into use too recently, and Tuck's type of Harper was even more observant and thoughtful than the regular Harper, so Robinton doubted that was the case here.

Still. It was curious that someone had found out about him and F'lon, and were trying to contact them. Or _him_ at least. Was it a test devised by the Benden Weyrleaders or the Masterharper to see if he and F'lon were keeping their word about limiting contact with this time? Or was it someone else entirely that couldn't contact him through the established route--the Benden Weyrleaders? And if so, what sort of intents and goals did they have? Were they aware that they were essentially meddling with time by contacting him? Was the Tailor directly involved, or just a vehicle for bringing the letter to him? As far as he could tell, meeting the Tailor at Benden Weyr had been chance. And his clothes _had_ been rather ragged. The difference stood out to him, obvious, now that he'd just handled some brand new clothing.

Robinton sighed and flicked the letter into the hearth, and watched the paper burn easily, and the broken wax seal bubble up and run to spatter into the fire, hissing and spitting. It sounded like they were waiting for him to contact them, before initiating anything. If he were lucky, he could just ignore it and that would be that. If he wasn't lucky...hmm. Perhaps he should mention it to Lessa when she came tomorrow for F'lon's lesson.

He didn't like that option too much. It was really a question he should address to the Masterharper, if it really did involve Harpers of Nip and Tuck's type. Perhaps he should ask her if the Masterharper was going to visit them. Although that might provoke her curiosity.

Robinton shook his head to himself, and decided to sleep on it. So he went back upstairs, undressed again, and closed the glows.

It took him a while to get to sleep.

#

**Author's Notes:** You can obviously see where this divulges from the original, I'm sure!

For all those who have reviewed, thank you. For those who haven't...care to review and tell me why? (grin!) I'm having a terribly difficult time judging the quality of this fic; I do admit I compare the number of reivews I have to other fics posted on this site, and I have fewer than some, and I'm trying to figure out if it's because I write satisfactorly enough that nobody feels the need to point out flaws, or if I write so boringly that few people are motivated enough to review (or if people think they already read this fic due to the earlier version). Really, a writer works in something of a vacuum, so reviews, of any and all sorts, really REALLY help out. Thanks!

Oh, and regarding quotes--quote away. I'm crass enough to quote myself, so I definitely don't mind if you quote my fics.

Also--if you haven't noticed, fanfiction dot net has changed the "Anne McCaffrey" category to read "Dragonriders of Pern". Meaning, my Talent fics are now under the incorrectly-named "Rowan series" (Should be "The Tower and the Hive" series, but this site's admins don't care). Just wanted to make you folks aware of the change. The same thing happened to Crystal Singers and all the rest, although I don't think anyone who has written CS fics have re-categorized them into that category yet. But the option is available to fic authors. FYI.

Lastly, and back on topic--woo! We're getting into the meat of the story! And I think I corrected some flaws in this version that were hurting the original. And I admit, I have a soft spot for little Sapho. (Teslay and Camolien are fun to work with too. Yay for original characters!)


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

"Tell me, Harper...is it obvious?" F'lon asked Robinton a sevenday later, tossing his helmet on the stone table and plopping down on the cold, unpadded stone bench in a way that made Robinton's tailbone flinch.

Robinton caught the helmet before it rolled into his bowl of soup, and set it out of the way on the table. "I'm thinking that it is not, because I haven't the foggiest what you're talking about. Do you want some food?"

"Did you cook it?"

"It actually turned out well this time," Robinton admitted, stirring his spoon around in the broth. It kicked up rice and diced vegetables, and sent tiny savory particles swirling in the amber liquid.

"Ha! I'll have a little then." And F'lon jumped up again like he had springs in his boots and retreated into the kitchen. A few moments later he re-appeared with his own steaming bowl. "Hmmm. This is good!" he said, timidly sipping at the steaming hot liquid in his spoon as he sat.

"Thank you sir," Robinton said, and dipped a piece of bread into his bowl to sop up some broth. A few moments later he spoke up again. "What is it that you wanted to speak to me about?"

"F'lar and F'nor. Did you know they're brothers?"

"I didn't pick up on it, no. So I might say that it's not obvious from first glance."

"No, no, no, that's not the obvious part. Think about it again."

Robinton thought about it again, as commanded. "F'lar looks a bit like you," he said.

"Yes! So it _is_ obvious!"

Robinton snorted. "Am I supposed to be drawing some sort of conclusion from _that_? I can think of three, maybe four other riders from our _own_ time that have a resemblance to you. Probably half-brothers or cousins or whatever--I'm led to believe that that doesn't matter much among weyrfolk, though. Am I wrong?"

"You're not _wrong_, Robinton. Are you really not picking this up, or are you trying to make me feel better about not realizing it before now?"

"I didn't pick it up _originally_, but you've been leading me down a path for the last few moments. Are they related to you?"

"They're my _sons_!"

Robinton blinked in genuine surprise, trying to reconcile the stern, authoritative Benden Weyrleader and the quiet but watchful brownrider with that information. Both men were easily twice his age, so it took a few mental gymnastics to get his brain to accept it, despite the physical similarity between F'lar and F'lon. "They act _nothing_ like you."

F'lon waved that away with his hand. "We've seen their _public_ personas. Who knows what they're really like. I don't always act like fluff on the wind, you know. I've been a little discombobulated by events lately."

"That's a big word for a little dragonrider," Robinton teased.

The bronzerider threw a piece of bread at Robinton. "I have _sons_! And maybe you do too! Do you think Masterharper Sebell is related to you in any way? He's tall...like you..."

"It would be terribly convenient for your sons to run Benden Weyr and mine to run the Harper Hall, wouldn't you think?"

"Do you doubt that F'lar and F'nor are--"

"No, no, not at all. I'm doubting that Sebell is my son. Or Menolly my daughter, for that matter." Robinton paused, thinking about it. If he had a child, a son or a daughter...he would have expected him or her to act a bit _differently_, if he was, say, a parent come back from the dead. There had been a note of...of...of _something_, from both the Harpers. He'd seen the shock, warring with the need to act in an official capacity during this strange mixed-up _betweening_ across whens. But it wasn't like how he would feel if, say, his mother had come back to him, if she...

Well, that was a depressing thought. "Thanks for making me imagine my mother gone," Robinton said, a touch of sarcasm in his tone.

"Oh. I'm sorry. Why were you thinking about that? Oh! Well, you might have fostered them..."

Robinton gave his friend a look. "No offense intended, I know the weyrs do it frequently, but I doubt I'll foster my children, if I ever have any."

"So you don't think that Masters Sebell or Menolly are--"

"I think they're my Apprentices," Robinton said. "Or were. Or will be."

F'lon raised his eyebrows. "So you're Masterharper? Before Sebell?"

Robinton hesitated. "It feels...arrogant to say yes. Being that I'm merely a Journeyman now. But," and he sighed. "Evidence suggests it. Master Gennel has been grooming me for it for a couple of Turns now; I would have to be blind to deny that _that_ is what he's doing with me. If it wasn't, I would be one of the other Master's Apprentices; it doesn't make sense for a Masterharper to take an apprentice that won't follow in his footsteps, unless he already has a candidate under his wing. Regardless of the fact that formally you need a majority of the Masters to vote a new Masterharper in, historically it's been rare that they've chosen someone other than the previous Masterharper's student. So if I become Masterharper, and _Sebell_ is Masterharper _now_, it follows that Sebell would have been my Apprentice. I would have groomed him to replace me. It would also explain why both Master Sebell and Master Menolly have such difficulties calling me 'Journeyman'." Robinton paused, then switched subjects again. "If F'lar and F'nor really are your sons...they seem like good men."

"Yes. I barely know them _or_ what they've done, but I'm already proud of them. Isn't that strange? And they're _both_ dragonriders!" F'lon seemed even prouder of that. Then he seemed to deflate. "I've been a horrible boor, though. The worst example of a father ever. Right in front of them. If I had only _known_...!"

Robinton laughed. "I think they'll understand."

"Are you embarrassed about how you've acted around your future Apprentices?"

Robinton considered this. "If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't start it out _drunk_."

"I don't think we'd be here in the first place if we hadn't been drunk. Or," and here F'lon shot his friend a very wicked grin, "You could have remembered your riding gear!"

"Hey now, just because I forgot my gear didn't mean _you_ had to take us into a thunderstorm," Robinton quickly pointed out, stabbing a forefinger at his friend in emphasis. "Don't blame your failings on me!"

The two young men growled at each other over that one for a while, re-treading a mock-argument that had grown comforting and familiar over the past seven days. They managed to empty the cooking pot too, something which Robinton noted with a bit of bemused happiness; it didn't always happen when he was the one making the meal. His culinary explorations didn't work out nearly as well as his musical ones did. Although he was trying; the longer they stayed here, the more he became restless. He had nobody to teach, nobody to perform for, no destination to go to (within his control), no way to help F'lon and Simanith do...whatever it was that they needed to do to be able to return them to their own time. He wasn't quite sure what to do with himself.

Thinking of that..."How goes lessons?"

F'lon hesitated in his reach for the crusty end of the loaf of bread, then picked it up and with a frown tore it into pieces. "Not...not well. We don't know why."

"Oh," Robinton said. "How is it not going well?"

F'lon gave Robinton a _look_. "We're still _here_, aren't we?"

"That is true," Robinton said cautiously, hoping that F'lon would relent and give him some more information to work with.

F'lon rolled his eyes. "The mechanics are the same as going _between_ like normal. I've verified it with the Weyrwoman hundreds of times now. We, Simanith and I, visualize our destination, like we normally would when going _between_. Then we add a fourth dimension--time. Typically time is implicit...when you want to go _between_ from one spot to another, you want to go there _now_, not yesterday, or tomorrow. But when you want to go back in time, you adjust your coordinates to the proper _when_ in addition to the _where_. You specifically imagine the place how it looked a sevenday ago, or Turns ago, or whatever, or you can also imagine it as you usually would, but _specify_ yesterday, as a fourth, unseen, dimension. If you've never been personally to that _when_ and _where_ you can even use a very specific mental image, such as of the stars or alignment of the moons which only _look_ a certain way during a certain _when_ from a certain _where_, and let the _when_ work itself out because the visual itself specifies the _when_ because it only occurred in that configuration at a specific moment in time."

"Or so you've been told?" Robinton guessed.

"Or so we've been told. We've tried going backwards a day. From here-today to Benden Weyr-yesterday. We go _between_ places fine, from here to the Weyr, but are still in the _now_ when we arrive...today, not yesterday. We tried a month, and a turn. Same deal. Simanith has taken the destination directly from Ramoth. And Lessa. And myself. Using stars and planets, using a specific memory of how the place looked yesterday, trying _all_ the different ways. Same result. We get to the _where_, but stay in the _now_." F'lon looked a little worried, but covered it up by using his shredded bread to clean up the last drips of soup from his bowl.

"They say this is unusual?"

"Oh she says nothing about if it's unusual or not. Her lips are sealed on that. And it's not unknown for a weyrling to pop out of _between_ right where they entered it a few seconds later, or right back to their home weyr, rather than going where they intended to go; our dragons are trained to do that if something _wrong_ happens, so we don't exit in a mountainside or something. But Simanith and I are _not_ weyrlings. And I can tell that we're going wrong somewhere, just by the way she's expanded on the tactics to try to get us to time it somewhere successfully. You don't do that when training dragons unless the usual way isn't working."

"I would say you try that tactic with _any_ student that's not performing as expected," Robinton mused. "Do all the dragonridrers here learn how to go _between_ times as well as places?"

F'lon shook his head, then nodded, then shrugged. "Yes, no, maybe so? I get the impression it's not nearly as big of a production as it is with Simanith and I. The first time she introduced it, in our first lesson, it was merely as a fourth dimension. Like...to make a Harper analogy, playing a chord with four notes instead of three. Slightly different, but not so much that it should take _this_ much effort."

"Unless you're missing a finger," Robinton said with morbid amusement. "Then you can play a three-note chord just fine, but will have all sorts of trouble adding a fourth note."

F'lon paused, as if seriously considering it. "But we _got_ here. How did we _get_ here in the first place if we only have three fingers?"

It was unhelpful, but Robinton didn't have any answers. Nor did he want to suggest that a fourth "finger" had been damaged on the way here, or some such. "I don't know."

"Man. I'm so sorry we got you into this..." the bronzerider told him with a maudlin expression, while shaking his head in apology.

"It's not your fault, F'lon. Nor Simanith's, nor mine. It just _happened_. Perhaps it has something to do with the lightening storm; perhaps the lightening strike addled your heads at precisely the _wrong_ moment, and that's how we got here."

"Are you suggesting we find a tame thunderbolt to catalyze our way home?" F'lon asked. "Shards, I _hope_ that's not the solution. I don't want to go flying in a thunderstorm again without the tingly glowy feeling of being entirely liquefied-drunk beforehand."

Robinton agreed with that. Yet, he couldn't help but consider it seriously. It _was_ one wild card that had occurred while they had made the transition _between_. "It would be breaking our word, as we'd have to go seeking out a thunderstorm...but do you want to try it?"

F'lon glanced over his shoulder, as if seeking for invisible eyes and ears spying on them. "But how do you coax the lightening down out of the sky? It doesn't really strike on will, you know."

"Have you ever seen a wooden hold?"

"A _what_?"

"A hold. Built of wood."

"Why under the red star would anyone do _that_?"

"My mother has a cousin who is a woodsman. There are lots of trees around in the area where they live, but it's a bit of a trial to find stone. It's expensive to transport it in, and the Lord Holder isn't always willing to fund the creation of a new minor hold. The older families live in existing holds made of stone, but the newer ones, and the poorer woodsie people, use what's at hand. What's plentiful, what they have the tools to harvest. There are many people who don't believe in Thread, F'lon, and wood works just as well as stone to keep the rain off of your head and the drafts out of your bedroom."

"It's short-sighted of them."

"I don't know; it's been hundreds of Turns since Thread last fell. You can't really blame them for being practical."

"Robinton...you _heard_--"

"No, no, no, I'm not saying _I_ believe Thread is never going to fall again, or that we were lied to about it, but in _our_ time, without that information...it's not _illogical_. It's very easy to see why people have started to make that choice, to use wood. That's all I'm saying. Anyway, they understandably have an issue with fire. From lightening. They have these big metal poles attached to the peaks of the roofs of the holds. I asked my mother's cousin's family what they were for, the first time I saw them. And they said, it causes the lightening to hit the metal part rather than the wood, and somehow the lightening goes into the ground and _that_ keeps things from being set on fire. I don't know exactly how it works, though. But the metal pole attracts lightening _away_ from everything else in the area."

"So you say we should go find a metal pole, and _then_ find a thunderstorm, and then go riding around it with the pole stuck out to see if lightening strikes us, and when it does, we should try to go _between_ back to our own time?"

"I never said we _should_, F'lon," Robinton said, uncomfortably aware of the stupidity of the idea. "I'm just putting ideas on the table. Speculation number one: we're here because of the lightening. _Solution_ number one: try to get lightening to hit us again."

"How is it that you make an awful lot of sense when saying stupid things?"

"It's a gift. I can make anything sound perfectly logical," Robinton said with a smile.

"What about the fact that lightening only strikes a man once, if ever?"

"Is that a myth, or is it true?" Robinton asked.

"How would I know?" F'lon said. "I never expected to be hit _once_."

"...alright. I'll hold the rod."

"So if we do this, you're _volunteering_?"

Robinton rolled a shoulder. "Never ask someone else to do something you wouldn't be willing to do yourself?" he offered. "And you've been hit once. I suspect that that tale is a myth, but I don't think we'll have the chances to try more than once, all the same."

"But you don't even know _how_ the lightening didn't set the wood aflame, you said."

The Harper was uncomfortably aware of that, but shrugged. "Why does a string play a note when plucked? I don't know. But I can make and attach the string to my gitar. I suppose I can find a metal pole and. Er. Hold it out in a thunderstorm."

"...we're actually going to do this, aren't we?"

"We're not doing anything if you don't want to," Robinton said, and rose, gathering their dirty dishes to him. "It's not like I can go _between_ all on my lonesome. Let's think it over." And with that he left the idea in the dragonrider's lap, and took their dishes to the kitchen so he could wash them.

#

Two nights later, some time after midnight with both moons riding high, Robinton and F'lon crawled out of bed. Without saying anything, they both made their beds, gathered their things, and made their way outside. Robinton had a pole that he had found stored away in one of the storage rooms. It was plain, and about as long as the spread width of his arms, and hollow so it wasn't as heavy as it could have been. It didn't seem to be used for anything, or if it was, it seemed like something that would be simple enough to replace, since if they were successful, they would be taking it with them.

"Did you ever get anything out of Lessa on if she thought the storm might have had anything to do with it?" Robinton asked his friend, as they exited the small cothold and slid the metal door shut on its track.

F'lon's stride hesitated, then corrected itself. "No."

Robinton frowned. "Did you _ask_ her?"

"...no," F'lon admitted

Robinton closed his eyes for a moment. "F'lon--"

"She would have caught on, and put a stop to it! The moment I opened my mouth, no _matter_ how I phrased it, she would have caught on. She can hear all dragons, you know?"

Robinton didn't know how that applied to F'lon, since _he_ wasn't a dragon, merely a dragonrider. "You're still scared of her?" Robinton asked.

"I am not 'scared'. I am _cautious. _And since you obviously are not, why didn't you--"

"Because she _definitely_ would have caught on if a _Harper_ was asking about it. I technically have no need to know; without a dragonrider around, I can't apply the knowledge. I would need to coerce someone into helping me. Nevermind that; do you know where there's a thunderstorm around?"

"Nerat," F'lon said. "Rolling in near Half Circle Sea Hold."

"Ah. So we know that, at least."

"Yes. You brought the pole? Good." And F'lon grabbed Robinton's gitar case and strapped it on.

"I brought the pole. You know, I think I should leave these riding leathers behind..."

"What? No! Are you stupid? You're lucky you didn't come down with firehead or anything _last_ time. Besides, they're yours."

"These are far finer than anything I've ever owned, my friend. They shouldn't be mal-used like this. And I'm just borrowing them."

F'lon turned around and rolled his eyes heavenward. "They're _yours_. I will bet you five marks on that."

"The Masterharper never said anything about giving..."

"Anxiety is slowing your brain down tonight, old man."

Robinton paused, thinking about that. "Wait. You think they were _mine_?" he asked, what F'lon was saying suddenly clicking.

"They still smell like storage!"

"Oh." Robinton looked down and touched the lapel of the jacket, which was snugly and warmly padded with fleece. It had blue-stitched patterns on it. "Oh." He didn't quite know what to think about wearing riding leathers that he had owned in these times...before he had passed away. It was more than a little strange.

"Don't worry about it. Get on, and bring the pole, and think on how you're going to explain those fancy riding leathers to your mother."

"I only wish," Robinton said. "Alright, let's get on with this ridiculous scheme."

#

"This isn't a very good thunderstorm," Robinton commented in F'lon's ear some time later, as they hovered above a crag-ridden shoreline. The moons still shone brightly at their backs, uncovered by clouds just yet, and the waves below crashed and roared with more than your standard vigor, but the storm rolling in from the south was little more than some surly dark clouds, and a few glimmers of lightening right now. It wasn't even raining; the air was thick and moist and smelled of ozone, but the moisture wasn't actually consolidating into droplets.

"You want we should look for a hurricane?" F'lon suggested.

"Not really. But this is sort of pathetic, as far as storms go."

"It'll get better. They usually do."

#

_F'nor._

Hair tickled his nose, but it was a tickling of a good sort, and F'nor pulled his weyrmate Brekke closer into his arms under the furs. She made a vague sleepy sound, and curled her small warm hand around his.

_F'nor. Wake up._ Canth's voice was insistent.

_What is it?_ F'nor asked, not quite believing that it was time to rise already.

_Simanith is gone._

F'nor's eyes flew open, and he cursed under his breath as the lest webs of sleep were swept away. Brekke still slept, however, so he gently extracted himself from her and from the furs, and quickly climbed out of the bed. _What? How?_

Canth didn't answer such an obviously stupid question like that, and F'nor didn't blame him as he groped around in the dark for his pants. _They've gone south,_ Canth said instead_._

It was clear from Canth's tone that Simanith--and presumably F'lon and maybe even Robinton--that they had left under their own power. Canth would surely pick it up if the bronze was in some sort of distress, and the brown dragon was nothing if not calm. But the move baffled F'nor--both Robinton and F'lon had promised to stay put. And if you couldn't trust _their_ words, who could you trust? F'nor shook his head to himself and hoped it had something to do with their youth. Even his father and the Masterharper had been young and impulsive once, as this whole state of affairs attested. Still. It was a bit strange. _Are they still in this when?_

_Yes_.

That was good, although not surprising considering Lessa's reports on the subject. _Do you know what they're doing?_

_Should I ask?_

_No, no not yet._ Such a question would likely be better put by Ramoth.

_She will scare the sense into them_, Canth agreed. _I have just told her that they are gone._

_Thank you,_ F'nor said. By the time he reached their quarters, they would be awake and dressed.

Well, mostly. F'lar was shirtless still when F'nor arrived, and Lessa hidden behind a screen, her riding jacket thrown over the top. "They left under their own will and power?" F'lar asked F'nor, pulling a shirt up both arms, and then over his head. He nodded before F'nor could reply, probably to something his bronze had said. "What do you think, Lessa?"

"If you're asking if I knew anything about this, no, I didn't," she said from behind the screen. Then the riding jacket was pulled down, and a moment later she emerged, dressed in her wherhide, her hands busy behind her head braiding her hair. "F'lon doesn't say much around me. He seems to only open his mouth when Robinton is there to back him up." Her tone was dismissive.

F'nor caught F'lar's eye, and they shared a look. It was a bit strange to see a man they had known as being so strong and in command being set wrong-footed by this particular Weyrwoman, but a little funny to watch as well. A moment later F'lar sighed. "So we essentially have no idea why they're up and about in the middle of the night."

Lessa peered at a mechanical clock on one of the tables that had been given as a gift to them from the Mastersmith. "It's after midnight. Why this late?"

"After midnight is a good time to be skulking around, if you have no intention of running into anyone." F'lar said. "And for even _us_ to be asleep."

"Simanith must not have realized that Canth was keeping an eye on him," F'nor said, yawning.

"I thought the whole point of having Canth do it was so that Simanith _would_ know," Lessa muttered to herself.

_She underestimates me,_ Canth said smugly. F'nor felt a little stung at Lessa's comment, but knew Lessa likely didn't mean to imply what she had implied. She looked tired and still a little asleep--much like he felt himself.

"Alright, let's swoop down from on high and put the fear of _us_ into them," F'lar said, a little jocularly.

Lessa wasn't impressed. "You think this is funny? They promised to stay put. Robinton even made a big production of saying _why_ he was promising," Lessa said.

"Guess we'll have to feed him to the whers," F'nor said lightly, and Lessa glared at him too. _Canth,_ he said. _Is Robinton with F'lon and Simanith?_

_Robinton is gone,_ Canth said ambiguously.

_Gone as in he went with them, or gone as in dead?_

There was confusion in Canth's tone. _Didn't we fly for him?_ he asked.

F'nor sighed. "Robinton may or may not be with F'lon; Canth doesn't think that this Harper and _our_ Robinton are the same," he said outloud for F'lar's benefit.

"Ramoth says there's nobody in the cothold, so I'd presume he went with," Lessa said.

"Let's go then," F'lar said, pulling on his own riding gear. "And see what they're up to."

#

Robinton wondered if there was an ideal position for holding a metal pole when you were trying to use it to get hit by lightening. He held it straight up at first, mimicking the configuration he'd seen on the wooden holds, but even hollow it was heavy and he was concerned that if he dropped it, they wouldn't be able to find it in the dark on the ground below. Perhaps he should have attached a chain or rope to it. Of course, it didn't matter much now. "This storm is still pathetic," he told his friend. There was hardly any lightening at all, not like the one from before.

F'lon was quiet for a little while, his head cocked, as if he were speaking to his dragon silently. Then he leaned back, and Robinton put his ear by the man's mouth so he could hear. "Keroon usually has some good storms this time of year. Let's try there." And with that brief warning, they went _between_ again. And emerged into a screaming, pouring, flashing vortex that was probably a thunderstorm.

"I THINK THIS IS PRETTY PATHETIC TOO, MAYBE WE SHOULD TRY AGAIN?" F'lon howled over the shrieking of the wind at Robinton as the storm buffeted even the heavy bronze dragon about.

Robinton bonked him on the head with a light fist, which made the dragonrider laugh. Simanith, too, seemed to perk up at the storm, and roared at it in challenge. Not unlike before. A good sign? Maybe. He held the rain-slickened metal pole up above his head in a tight grip, trying to ignore the voice within that told him that this was very, very stupid. And he closed his eyes, not wishing to be blinded when the lightening struck, if it did.

He wasn't expecting to go _between_ when they did some time later; there had been no lightening hitting them at all. When they emerged, he opened his eyes and queried F'lon. "Did we go home?" he asked, although he doubted it, because they were still in the middle of a storm.

"No!" F'lon yelled back. "The Weyrleaders are here!"

"Blast," Robinton muttered. "So soon? Weren't they _asleep_ or something?" Or had they timed it, like F'lon was attempting to do?

F'lon didn't answer that, but Simanith tilted under them, and seemed to steer them into a darker bank of clouds. Robinton gamely held onto the metal rod, as rain blew sideways into his face. He was unsure if this was better than when he had been drunk or not; the rain was cold and managed to seep down the back of his jacket to kiss his spine.

"You hit yet?" F'lon yelled above the wind as a particularly close SNAP! of thunder roared.

"Believe me, you'll know when I've been hit!" Robinton said in the man's ear.

Lightening did not strike. They darted among the clouds, occasionally going _between_ to avoid pursuit, or so Robinton presumed. He didn't know where they were any more, but held onto the pole, and sort of poked it in the direction the most lightening was flashing among the clouds.

No results. No direct lightening strikes, for all the thunder, nor did they emerge into the air above the Harper Hall of the correct when.

"I'm not sure this is working!" Robinton yelled in F'lon's ear. "And I'm going to be deaf soon from all this thunder!"

"What?"

Robinton didn't know if F'lon was messing with him or not, but didn't repeat the question. He was starting to feel a little sick from all the weaving and dipping and swerving the great bronze dragon was doing to stay aloft. He hoped Simanith was not struggling, and that he was doing all right.

_I am not struggling,_ the bronze assured him. _But __Mnementh__ and Canth are following us. I am staying ahead of them._

"Thank you," Robinton said, not expecting a status report directly from the dragon himself, but appreciating it nonetheless. If the bronze, who was the one doing all the hard work, was not struggling, _he_ certainly had a little more stamina in him. He held onto the metal rod grimly.

#

"What in the world are they _doing_?" Lessa asked the two other dragonriders, as they stood in the middle of a sopping wet Keroonian field in the middle of the night in a thunderstorm, shielded from the downpour by three overlapped wings.

"I thought they were fleeing from us," F'nor said. "But they keep returning to the center of this mess. It's like they're only jumping _between_ so we'll stop bothering them, and there's something that they want here."

"But why would they break their word to visit a muddy, unused field in the middle of the night in a thunderstorm?" Lessa cried. "It's makes no sense!"

"There _must_ be something here," F'lar agreed, rubbing at his chin and peering out into the darkness. Simanith and his riders were impossible to make out in the dark and in this weather, but it was possible that whatever they were after was visible. Lightening flashed, illuminating waist-high grain gyrating in the winds, but F'lar could not spot anything of value.

"Canth says they've stopped going _between_ now that we're no longer pursuing them," F'nor said.

"And Simanith is not obeying Ramoth?" F'lar asked his Weyrwoman.

"He's being very polite, but is refusing my request to land," Lessa confirmed, her mouth thin.

"Ask Simanith if he will land once he's done here," F'lar asked suddenly.

Lessa looked surprised, but then understanding dawned, and her eyes became far away as she spoke directly to Simanith. A few moments later, her expression changed to one of curiosity. "He says he will land if things fail."

All three of them understood then.

"They're trying to--" F'nor began.

"--the proper _when_--" F'lar agreed.

Lessa nodded. "But they've been failing entirely during my lessons. Do they think the _thunderstorm_ is what's going to catalyze their return home? It doesn't work that way!"

"How many people jump forward in time--_without_ a guide?" F'lar pointed out.

Lessa hesitated, not willing to take his point, but not willing to refute it out of hand, either.

"They're landing," F'nor interrupted. "How long were they up there in the storm?"

"Too long," Lessa said, a sour tone returning to her voice. It was clear that she was not happy at all with the antics of the two young men. "F'lon should know better than to ride in a thunderstorm!"

"Let's see if they have any excuses for this," F'lar said, watching as Simanith landed a few dragonlengths away. Then he left the protection of their dragons' wings.

#

"Here comes our welcoming committee," Robinton said in F'lon's ear, as flashes of lightening showed the gathered forms of three dragons, and their three riders striding towards where Simanith had landed. "What are you going to say?"

"Me?" F'lon asked, and laughed. "That's what I brought _you_ along for! _Harper_."

Robinton rubbed the back of his neck, which was beginning to prickle. "Right. Keep in mind that no matter _what_ I say, we're going to be in serious trouble. And I can only do damage control if they _want_ to be fooled. If you're looking for a happy ending, well, I'm fresh out of those right now."

"It's better than what I have," F'lon muttered, then stopped speaking as the Benden Weyrleader came within shouting distance.

"Bronzerider! Harper!" Weyrleader F'lar said. It wasn't exactly a greeting. More of an acknowledgment that they had gained his attention, and in the worst way possible. "Is there a particular _reason_ you broke your word and dragged us out of our beds at this blighted hour? Into a thunderstorm no less?"

Robinton considered his options, and transferred the metal pole to his other hand, and started to unbuckle himself. If any damage control was to be done, it was better done face to face, and not while he seemed to be in a position where he could potentially flee from consequences if Simanith took off. Considering how the Weyrleaders _themselves_ had deemed it necessary to rouse and pursue them in the middle of the night, he didn't doubt they'd have entire wings out after them if they made a serious attempt to leave that didn't involve in going _between_ back to their own when. "My apologies, Weyrleaders," Robinton said loud enough to be heard, while undoing the last buckle, and swinging his leg over so that he could slide down Simanith's side. The movement made the hairs on his legs prick and pull painfully against the cloth of his pants. A rather odd reaction to the fear that tried to raise its head deep inside of him, but he pretended the anxiety belonged to someone other than him, and powered through it, focusing on being polite and contrite. "We didn't expect you to be joining us out here tonight."

"Is that supposed to be funny, Harper?" Lessa demanded, coming alongside her mate.

"No, no! Not at all," Robinton assured them, extending one foot to catch himself when he reached the ground. "We--"

Static sizzled up his spine from tailbone to scalp, making his hair crawl painfully, and suddenly his left hand exploded with a metallic sound, and his right foot, touching the ground, seized.

The world went white.

There was a scream. It was his.

Then the world went black.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **MmmMMmm. Cliffhanger. And, we're almost at the plot!

Please, read and review. Many thanks!

Edit: Fixed some typos. MercuryBlue144 - thanks for catching that...F'lon being his own father would be more...interesting...and messed up...than I intended! calenlily - Well, a lot of the story has just been set up so far. So plotty, but not really to the _interesting_ parts, I would say. This chappie is probably my first domino toppling over. ::grin::


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

"Izz zstill have a hand..." Robinton mumbled in amazement when it became clear to him that the bandage-wrapped hand lying next to him on the pillow was indeed his own, and he had awoken.

Immediately several people moved in the room, most of them coming to his bedside.

One of them was F'lon. "We're still here," he confided, sitting on the bed next to Robinton, and making it dip.

Robinton closed his eyes. His entire body ached and complained, in different ways. His left hand felt burned and sore. His right foot, particularly his toes right down to the bones and joints, the same. His ribs felt as if they'd been captured in a vise-grip at some point in time and _squeezed_, and his skin ached strangely all over, as if it had somehow been flayed and burned without touching the muscle or flesh underneath. "Thazz juss not fair," he slurred tiredly, his tongue not wanting to move properly with his lips. A little dismayed at his poor enunciation, he closed his mouth and then rubbed at it with his undamaged right hand.

Brekke was among the people gathered at his bedside. "Are you in pain?" she asked, taking the top off of a jar of numbweed she already held.

Not screaming-pain, no. But the throbbing, burning ache in his left hand worried him, and he drew the appendage in to himself and picked at the bandages lethargically, until Brekke reached over and helped him work it lose. The bandages they unwound were stained yellow with salve and fluids, but there wasn't much blood. When they got the last of the bandages off, Robinton could see that there was a large, straight, burned-looking welt across his palm and fingers, presumably where the metal pole had been clutched in his hand. Delicately, Robinton moved each finger one by one. It was painful, but each one seemed to have some sort of movement still. He didn't seem to have enough energy to actually try to make a fist, and he suspected that that would hurt unbearably if he tried, so he sighed and let Brekke take his hand back and dress it with fresh numbweed and bandages. Stupid that he had never considered the possible effects of lightning traveling through his hands...but F'lon hadn't been too affected by it, and when he had been hit it had gone through _his_ head.

Perhaps _that_ explained the difference. Robinton tried to file the thought away so he could tease his friend with it when he felt more like teasing.

"You should be able to play once that heals up," Brekke assured him.

"Thazz good. 'M not pretty enough t' be a Singer." Fatigue and sleep dragged at him. "'nd it'd make Petiron mad."

F'lon threw back his head and laughed at that.

"That you didn't fulfill his expectations?" Brekke asked soothingly.

"That'd compete with _moth'r_, too." Robinton muttered, and closed his eyes again for a moment or two.

F'lon laughed harder, and Robinton re-opened his eyes to make sure that F'lon was alright. There was a note of something akin to hysteria in F'lon's laughter. The hysteria of relief. Robinton offered a quarter of a tired smile, hoping that would suffice to calm his friend down.

"How long do you think before he can play again?" Another voice asked. Sebell, Robinton identified.

"It's hard to give an exact estimate," Brekke said. "It depends on how deeply the damage went below the skin. He may need to exercise the hand once it heals, to ensure it's flexible enough."

"I have something that can help." Menolly, this time.

"I'd forgotten about that," Sebell murmured.

"I still use it," Menolly said. "From time to time."

Robinton didn't know what they were referring to, but it was very kind that they wanted to help him, despite that his own stupidity had put him in this state in the first place.

"You're going back to sleep, aren't you?" F'lon asked.

"'d be nice," Robinton said. And a moment later, he was offered some fellis juice. He opened his eyes and managed to sit up enough to drink it, and soon darkness rolled over him again.

#

"What happened?" Robinton asked a day or two later, when his head had cleared, he could enunciate words properly, some of the more minor aches had faded, and nobody else was in the room at that particular moment.

"Massive chaos," F'lon said. "You were talking pretty, getting down off of Simanith. And then, _blam_, out of nowhere, lightning hit that rod in your hand. And you. It pretty much blinded and deafened me, but Simanith is clever and he grabbed you around the chest and took us _between_. Unfortunately, it didn't work. We landed back where we were, and everyone was still recovering from being blinded and deafened. Simanith and I took you back to Benden Weyr after that, and they woke up Brekke to see if we needed to take you to the Healer Hall or not, and somebody got the Masterharper roused and to the Weyr when Brekke was examining you." F'lon hesitated, then nudged Robinton in the arm conspiratorially. "You're pretty bloody good at the diplomacy thing, you know, I'm _really_ impressed; after _that_, nobody _dared_ do more than give us dirty looks for the stunt we pulled. You just looked so pathetic lying there with your hair singed off that I bet they all figured that that was punishment enough!" F'lon paused, and seemed to relent how he was painting people. "In all fairness, they were all absolutely terrified that you had been seriously hurt. The Weyrwoman was nearly in tears and I don't think she's the type to cry very often." F'lon paused again, and patted Robinton in the shoulder. "_I_ knew you'd pull through though," he said roughly, in a way that belied his words a bit.

Robinton pushed the furs away from himself and rose enough so that he could swing his legs around and sit on the edge of his bed. A quick examination showed a few bruises around his ribs--probably from where Simanith had grabbed him. He was somewhat glad he didn't remember that part; he liked Simanith quite well, but he still thought he would have had a moment of sheer panicked terror...assuming the terror wasn't all used up by the lightning...if the large bronze dragon had manhandled him like some sort of doll while he had been aware of things. "I suppose it was a pretty stupid idea."

"But if we hadn't tried it, we'd still be wondering."

"Indeed," Robinton said. Then he hesitated, something said earlier percolating through his mind. "My hair's singed off?" And he felt his hair, to see.

F'lon cocked his head to the side. "Something singed; you smelled pretty crispy-fried when we brought you to the Weyr. Your hair doesn't look too bad; perhaps it was the riding leathers that burned."

Robinton looked at the bronzerider dubiously, but he didn't encounter any obviously missing swathes of hair with his fingers when he searched. He _did_ need a bath and a comb in any case, though. And some food stronger than broth. Feeling as if he had aged over seventy turns overnight, he sighed and pushed himself up out of bed.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa--where are you going?" F'lon asked him in alarm.

"Somewhere I can wash the singed smell away."

"Oh, I can't even smell that anymore," F'lon assured him. Then, upon seeing Robinton's expression, backpedaled. "...okay, alright. Lean on me, would you?" he offered, jumping up when Robinton took a step forward and found that his right foot _really_ didn't like that idea. Robinton tried another painful step, but limped badly again, and when F'lon quickly rounded him in apprehension and propped him up on the right side, he didn't protest, but leaned on his friend's shoulder.

F'lon was a _very_ good friend. Robinton wasn't sure that many people would still be talking to him after participating in such a spectacular failure that _he_ had essentially masterminded. Not that there had been any _Mastery_ to the scheme. Perhaps it was just because he wasn't a dragonrider, but it seemed that there wasn't all that much understanding of how _between_ worked. If they knew how _between_ worked in the first place, perhaps they would be able to figure out what was going wrong here.

"And how, exactly, does the sun shine?" Robinton muttered to himself as he and F'lon made a rather awkward and slow, limping way out of the room Robinton had been stashed away in, towards, presumably, the closest bathing area. "Once we know that we'll be able to make it light outside at night, and get more work done!"

"I'm assuming your babbling actually makes sense when you know what's going on inside your head," F'lon said.

"Isn't that always the case?" Robinton asked.

"I suppose I'm doing a little more than assuming. Simanith _says_ your head is all right. I'm trusting him on this one."

Robinton made a sound that was possibly a laugh, and tugged the door to the bathing room. It was a little stuck, and took a good pull or two before flying open and banging right into his foot. He let out string of curses as pain flared up his shin all the way to the kneecap. "_Bloody_ mother of a thread-eating _wher's_--" And he tacked on a few more adjectives and verbs before he trailed off. His toes throbbed direly.

"Nice one," F'lon said absently. "I'm almost tempted to step on your foot to see what else you come up with."

"Only if you want us to be emergency-flown to the Healer Hall so they can remove this foot from your--" Robinton warned, giving the dragonrider a dire look.

F'lon grinned like a madman, but didn't tempt fate by testing out matters. Instead he helped Robinton to the side of the pool, located some sweet sand for him, and even helped with a knot that Robinton's faultily-responding fingers had trouble with. Then he hared off to find them some food and replacement bandages while Robinton unwrapped the dressings from his hand and foot so he could get a good look at the damage.

Ugh. Both hand and foot had a lurid purple and red blistered welt across them, and they seemed to be... with a small sound of pain, Robinton removed his clothes, dropping them to the floor in a pile, and twisted around. The two welts were connected. It seemed the lightning had entered his left hand, streaked down the inside of his wrist and from his arm to his body, curled around the side of his ribs and down his back, across his right buttock, and down the back of his thigh until it curled around again under his knee to his shin, and then continuing downwards to encompass his right big toe. "Wonderful," he said to himself after examining the painful purple welt best he could, given much of it was on his backside. "I'm going to carry a full-body memento of this stupidity for the rest of my life."

After fulfilling his curiosity, he slid into the deep waters of the steaming bathing pool, hoping that perhaps F'lon would bring him back some numbweed too; the water made the welt start to throb furiously everywhere, to go along with the ache in his hand and foot. He ignored it best he could, and submerged himself, using the sweet sand to carefully wash away the grime and sweat from the ordeal.

Some time later, F'lon returned. He had the Harper woman Menolly along with him; she was holding a fresh pair of clothes and some bandages and numbweed, while F'lon carried a tray full of something that smelled delicious. Behind them, one of the tamed firelizards flew; it was the golden queen, and she caught Robinton's eye right away. _What a lovely creature,_ Robinton thought, before re-focusing on the food as his stomach rumbled. F'lon set the tray down at the edge of the pool, while Menolly carefully set down the jar of numbweed next to it. Robinton wrung some of the water and the last of the sweet sand out of his hair and swam to the edge of the pool to examine things.

"I brought this for you, Master Robinton," Menolly said, seemingly having forgotten, once again, his proper rank. Robinton felt a little awkward, his instincts telling him that his earlier theories about Sebell and Menolly having been his Apprentices were almost certainly correct. And he didn't have the heart to correct her this time; she seemed rather worried about him, judging by her body language. Menolly held out a little wooden box, oblivious to his thoughts, and then, realizing he wouldn't be able to open it without using his wounded hand, opened it for him, and showed two perfectly spherical ceramic balls.

"What is it for?" Robinton asked, as F'lon observed from the side.

Menolly folded her rangy frame into a sitting position next to the food, and then showed him her own left hand. It had an old, deep scar, like a knife wound, cutting across the palm of it. "You use the balls, along with these oils once the wound has healed a bit more," and she waggled a different bottle he hadn't noticed nestled among the clothing, "to help keep the scar tissue stretched and supple enough to be able to play. You want to start using these, like so." She plucked the spheres out of the box and showed him some sort of exercise with her left hand, almost like something a juggler would do absently before hurling the balls into the air. Menolly didn't start to juggle, however. "The sooner you start the exercises the better, so that your hand heals with the proper mobility you need to continue with the gitar. I almost started too late, myself."

"And if I don't use them, I won't be able to play?" Robinton asked.

"That's something you will need to ask Brekke, or another Healer, to know for certain," Menolly said. Then she pointed at his hand. "But you're already holding it curled up. Doesn't take much foresight to know it could end up healing a little curled, instead of properly."

Robinton looked at his hand. It was true; it was curled a little, because it hurt to extend his fingers out. Cautiously he spread his fingers, and felt his palm ache and protest, but before he could force his fingers wider, Menolly caught his hand with hers and stopped him. "Wait until the skin heals a little more, so it doesn't split and get infected. But once the scabbing is gone, use these twice a day, every day, along with your gitar practice."

"And you're not a Healer?" he asked with a smile, given how earnest her instructions were.

Menolly wrinkled her nose at him, and looked a little embarrassed. "I'm only passing the instructions the Masterhealer gave to me on to you."

"The Masterhealer?" F'lon asked in surprise.

"To be certain his advice to _me_ a few turns ago still applied here, I asked him about it." Menolly said. "Harpers don't actually acquire Healing knowledge by proximity. Although some of us like to think so."

Robinton chuckled at that. Once or twice a year they rounded up each new batch of Apprentices from both the Harper Hall and the Healer Hall and gave them a talking-to about incorrect information. The Healer Apprentices liked to goad Harper Apprentices into eating things vile but not technically toxic, saying anything from it being "good for your voice" to "it'll make your...you know...bigger...hey, stop hitting me! It's _true_!" and the Harper Apprentices liked nothing more than to lie their dear little heads off, the bigger story the better. Occasionally in the past these tendencies had escalated into mishaps, and the Halls liked to try to nip those sort of things in the bud. "You have my sincere appreciation for not attempting to fool me into eating wherry gallbladders and runner tripe, then," Robinton told her.

"...Wherries don't have gallbladders," F'lon said. "And more runner tripe makes its way into Gather meat pies than you know. It's harmless. I think. _Simanith_ likes it well enough."

"Oh look!" Robinton said, pointing above F'lon's head.

F'lon glanced up. "What?"

"A joke went _between_ right over your head, but you missed it."

Menolly stifled a laugh incompletely. "Sorry," she muttered, not looking very contrite.

The bronzerider made a face. "_You_ sir, are something...I'm not actually going to utter because there's a lady in the room."

"Please," Menolly said. "I was the only Craftswoman in a Hall full of _men_ for Turns." The gold firelizard that had settled onto her shoulder made a clearly disparaging sound in F'lon's direction.

Robinton laughed in delight. "Did she just..._say_ something to him?" he asked Menolly. "Did the little queen say something to you, F'lon?" He asked his friend. He turned back to Menolly. "_Do_ they say anything? Ever?"

"You're having entirely too much fun at my expense, Robinton," F'lon said.

"No, no, no, that's not it!" Robinton said, waving a hand at F'lon. "I think she said something. She put a lot of _emotion_ into that noise. Petiron has trained Singers with less nuance. _I_ have taught Harpers with less nuance. She _said_ something, am I right?" Robinton asked hopefully.

"Firelizards aren't dragons," Menolly said after a moment, seeming reluctant to squash Robinton's expectations. "Depending on the firelizard, it's like talking to a _very_ young child with an even shorter than normal attention span. Whether the child has one turn, or two turns, or four turns depends on the particular firelizard, and their color. Beauty here tends to react more to my emotions, and my state of mind, than have her own comments like a dragon would. That being said," and she regarded her queen firelizard, who was regarding her right back. "She's aware that we're talking about her. She will probably gossip with Masterharper Sebell's queen Kimi about this later on today. And she's apparently not afraid of Simanith, for all that he's a bronze dragon. _That_ may be bravado, though."

Beauty made another noise.

"_That_ was a comment," Robinton insisted.

"She knows I'm making fun of her," Menolly allowed with a laugh, and briefly rubbed the tip of the queen's muzzle with a finger.

"Firelizards are scared of dragons?" F'lon asked.

"It depends on the dragon," Menolly said, looking at him with her head tilted to the side. "Some dragons are annoyed by them, and chase them away by striking fear into their flighty little hearts. When that happens, I don't hear the end of it for days. Others are indifferent and don't care if they come or go. Some enjoy their presence, and their gossip. Those dragons tend to have something of a perpetual multi-colored escort. Firelizards find dragons pretty fascinating. They talk about them all the time."

"I thought you said they don't speak," Robinton prodded.

Menolly shrugged. "They sort of blast excited, disjointed pictures at you when they gossip. Emotions and pictures. Not really words. You sort of have to fill in the gaps, if you want to understand what they're actually saying. Sometimes you have to go talk to other people with firelizards before you get enough pieces of the puzzle put together." Menolly suddenly sighed. "I shouldn't be telling you this, you know." Her face was both resigned and amused.

"I won't tell," Robinton promised, giving her his most winsome smile.

"I recall you making a promise once before," Menolly said lightly, replacing the ceramic spheres she had been holding for a while into their box.

Robinton hadn't expected _Menolly_ to be the first one to chide him for their stunt, and a hundred excuses vied in his mind for a moment, along with his inner melodramatic, theatric actor. Working on gut instinct, he dismissed all of it just as fast. "I had a reason," he told her with honesty, meeting her eyes squarely, and without missing a beat.

Menolly met his gaze. "That does not surprise me; you usually do. I'm just more used to working with you when you have a rather larger store of _wisdom_."

She delivered the words in a gentle manner, but Robinton felt the tips of his ears sting fiercely...along with a few of the other assorted wounds he bore from his ordeal. He fought not to let it become a full-body blush of embarrassment. "Ah...well..."

Menolly shifted topics to allow him a way out. "I'll let you eat before your food gets cold, and dress. If you feel up to more activity afterwards, rather than napping--the Healers recommend the nap, by the way--come meet Sebell and I downstairs."

"Me as well?" F'lon inquired.

"No, the Weyrleader would like to speak with _you_ separately once you're done here. And you don't get a nap," she said with a wicked grin.

"Alright," F'lon said. Robinton could tell that he wanted to make a smart-aleck comment, but was refraining due to the circumstances.

"I probably won't nap," Robinton told Menolly. "I've been abed for most of two days.

"I rather thought you wouldn't," she said. "Eat up then. I'll see you soon." And Menolly unfolded herself and rose to her feet, and waggled her finger at the box with the spheres, and the small bottle of oil. "Don't forget about those. Not now, but soon enough."

"I won't," Robinton said, and watched her leave the room.

The two young men were silent for a few moments, then Robinton planted his palms on the edge of the pool and heaved himself out. F'lon handed him a cloth to dry himself with, and made a hissing noise when he saw the ugly welt traveling across Robinton's back. "That looks painful."

"It is, now that the numbweed has been washed off. Where'd that jar go?" Robinton asked. He dried his hair and legs and dropped the cloth in his lap and grabbed the jar. Then he spent a few moments re-dressing the wounds, and then himself, with some help from F'lon.

"Man, I'm so sorry this happened to you," F'lon started to say, but Robinton quickly shushed him.

"My idea, my fault," Robinton said. "At least it only hit me, and not you again. I'd feel much, much worse if it had been _my_ idea and _your_ body that ended up like this."

"Why are you bringing things like logic into this?" F'lon complained. "Doesn't make me feel any better."

Robinton chuckled. "True enough." He extracted a plate of food from the tray, and started to devour it by the side of the bathing pool. His stomach had been getting more and more insistent that it wanted to be _fed_. Fed right _now_, if you will.

"She's sort of interesting, you know?" F'lon told him while munching on a chunk of bread.

"Menolly? If all you can say about a woman is 'she's sort of interesting', you shouldn't be considering flirting with her," Robinton advised.

F'lon looked at him, and made a sound. "She's not really my type, Rob."

"Then why are you asking me if you should flirt with her?" Robinton asked, gulping down some klah.

F'lon widened his eyes and shook his head, making clear that he'd never _actually_ asked that. "...so you're _really_ just _that_ interested in the firelizards?"

"What?" Robinton asked.

"Or are you just being situationally insensitive and deaf?"

"What was that?" Robinton asked. "Speak up, lad."

F'lon snorted. "Harpers!" he said to the air, as if that explained everything.

"This is my way of sticking my fingers in my ears and going, 'La la la la la!'," Robinton agreed. "Without the atonal 'la la la' part. And yes, I _am_ that interested in firelizards. I wonder if Beauty would let me hold her? Or does she only allow Menolly to do that?"

"You are a sad, sad specimen of a man."

"Halls and Holds, Weyrling brat. Halls and Holds." Robinton put his empty dish back onto the tray, and shifted around in preparation to stand.

"Here, you're never going to make it on your own. Let me help."

#

**Author's Notes**

It's not exactly Christmas Day, a few days after that, but here you go. A new chapter. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

This was a fun chapter to write. I feel like I got to cram a lot of detail into it, and that is oddly satisfying to me. Weaving things together with a word choice here, a word choice there. Considering the impact of a single word choice on the story, and the characterization. It's awesome. I also have loads of fun writing lines that, taken out of context, could be taken sooooo wrong. But taken *in* context...mwa ha ha ha, you can't accuse me of anything. Except. Wait. I think I am admitting it right here.

Ah, well. Next chapter or two are the final few dominos to set up...and then _drama_. Funfunfun. I hope you are having as much fun reading this as I am writing it.

Shalyn/Laurie: Wool is static-y as well. As for "lightening" vs. "lightning"...the latter is correct. I speed-read, so I tend to remember shapes of words rather than spellings (I was a horrible, horrible speller in middle school; it's only improved due to sheer repetition through the years). "Lightning" looks, to my eye, as if I shortened the word improperly due to my speed-reading (light'ning), and since "lightening" didn't trigger my spellcheck I obviously thought "lightening" was the correct spelling, and "lightning" was wrong. So, basically...my error, thanks for catching it. When I eventually finish the fic, I'll go through the previous chapters and correct the rest of the occurances!


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

"How do I tell _Robinton_ that he made a mistake?" Sebell asked Menolly, slouching back in the chair he'd appropriated in the Weyrharper's empty classroom.

"Like we always have when nobody else would?" Menolly offered, settling onto a leather-covered loveseat against the wall and propping her head in her hand. Her firelizards lined up on the back of the loveseat in chromatic order.

Sebell made a little, "Huh," sound at the firelizards, then spoke. "But I don't actually _know_ this man. And instead of deferring to _him_, he defers to _me._ It's a very _strange_ feeling."

"Don't worry about it, Sebell. I already reprimanded him. It's over, it's done. It hit its mark too; I don't think I've ever seen him blush before." A small and slightly wicked smile graced her lips for a moment.

Sebell raised his eyebrows. "You _did_?"

"The topic came up naturally in our conversation," Menolly said, shrugging best she could from her half-prone position. "So I seized the moment. Probably helps that he was also stark naked and half-submerged in the bathing pool; nowhere for him to run. He'll certainly remember it."

Sebell let out a bark of laughter. "You _did_ that? You are a cold, cruel woman, Menolly." He paused to consider it again, and laughed once more. "That is _cruel_. That is _unspeakably_ cruel!"

"It wasn't _that_ bad," Menolly protested. "I'm no..." and she tilted her head at the door to indicate Weyrwoman Lessa, who was presumably _somewhere_ in the Weyr. Lessa had been simmering for the past two days on a combination of furious anger laced liberally with a heart-wrenching fear for Robinton. It wasn't anything that Menolly wasn't half-feeling herself, but it was disconcerting to have it amplified through ten firelizards. It was difficult for Menolly to avoid the woman as well without making it look like the Hall was somehow snubbing Benden.

"Menolly," Sebell said, drawing her back to the present and giving her a stern look. "You accosted a subordinate male Harper in the _bathing room_ and told him he did something stupid? That's the sort of thing young people keel over and die of embarrassment from."

"Now you're just bending things out of proportion," Menolly said. "There was no 'accosting' involved. F'lon and I brought him some things, we talked about firelizards a bit, and just ended up on the subject. I knew that you were having a little trouble trying to figure out how to approach the topic, so--" and she waved her hand forward, showing that she'd seized the chance.

Sebell cut her off before she could say more. "You accosted a young, subordinate, male Harper in the bathing room _in front of his_ _best_ _friend_," he said, stabbing his finger for emphasis, "And--"

"Sebell!"

Sebell cackled in glee.

"He took the point I was trying to make, but in no way did he take it _that_ harshly...you're just spinning a tale out of things now..."

"We'll find, in the Archives, a little torn off tune in Robinton's hand about this day far back in his youth he was nearly embarrassed to death by this strange woman Harper..." Sebell said, and then hummed a sad little minor key melody, conducting an imaginary orchestra with his forefingers.

Menolly searched around her on the loveseat for something to throw at Sebell, but came up empty handed. Which was probably as well; there were breakable things in the room and her aim wasn't always the best. She settled with giving him the evil eye.

Sebell decided to tire of the joke--for now--and settled back in his chair again. "So if you've already told him how stupid he acted, I don't actually have to do anything other than give him significant looks when he arrives here, do I?"

"Nope."

"Oh good. Thank you for making my life easier. I can do _significant looks_ in my sleep."

"That's what I'm here for," Menolly said, amused. "You know, I saw a bit of him in there, today."

Sebell blinked. "Come again?"

"He's always acted like Robinton, somewhat, but when he became enthusiastic about my firelizards, it was like when I first met him, after the Hatching in the Weyr. An echo. A very _strong_ echo. It was interesting," she said pensively, rubbing her thumb against her lower lip as she thought.

Sebell slowly nodded. "I remember that. He went crazy over them. Well, I mean I remember the part once he returned to the Hall with you. Profound enthusiasm. One of his manias."

"Yes! Exactly that! I saw the _same_ enthusiasm." Menolly could tell that her tone had altered; she sounded a little confused to her own ears. She cleared her throat.

"You getting a little choked up?" Sebell asked, giving her a sideways glance.

"I try not to in front of him. Poor man doesn't need ghostly memories of something he hasn't become yet interfering with his life. Or to feel that he has to live up to such high expectations."

"I agree. Does he know how to Impress a fire lizard now?"

"Ha. I didn't tell him _that_. I'm a softie occasionally, but not stupid, Sebell," she warned.

"I know, I know, was just trying to gauge things." His tone was a little contrite. Kimi suddenly flew down from the top of a bookshelf, and chirruped. Beauty gave Menolly a similar indication that Robinton had arrived. "Do I look stern?" And Sebell scowled at Menolly menacingly.

"I suppose so, but even the densest, culturally-illiterate emotionally-stunted Lord would pick up that you're playacting," she warned.

Sebell chuckled to himself, and when the actual knock on the door came, all traces of over-acted sternness and any other sort of melodrama had vanished.

"Come--" Sebell started.

"--come in," Menolly said in unison.

It was indeed Robinton, as expected, although Menolly was a little alarmed to see that F'lon was providing Robinton more aid to walk than she had realized he had needed. She immediately rose and held the door open for them, and then once they had entered the room, she darted out behind them with a quick, "I'll be right back," Beauty trailing behind her.

_I can't believe I didn't realize he couldn't walk on that foot,_ Menolly thought to herself, and jogged through the Weyr, trying to figure out where Brekke would be at this time of day. Beauty searched with her, then chirruped and went _between _for a few moments. Eventually she returned, and confidently led Menolly to the woman, where she was in one of the storerooms speaking with Manora. "Brekke!"

"Menolly," Manora greeted her, and Brekke gave her a nod, as her hands were full with something.

"Do we have crutches or something for," and she hesitated saying the name out loud where someone walking past in the hall could hear. "You know?"

"Next to the bed; why?" Brekke asked.

"He went off without them, didn't he?" Manora asked knowingly, and shook her head, making a slight _tsk tsk_ sound.

An expression crossed Brekke's face, and if Menolly didn't know better, she would have suspected the gentle Healer was cussing a blue streak in her head.

"It probably would have been easier for me to check his quarters for them first, wouldn't it?" Menolly asked with a laugh. "Alright. Thank you ladies."

"Make him _use_ them, Menolly," Brekke pleaded in exasperation.

"I'll tell him I'll beat him with them if he doesn't," Menolly said, and Manora laughed. "It doesn't matter how young or old they are, does it?" Menolly asked them rhetorically, shaking her head.

"Oh you'll figure _that_ out once _you_ have children," Manora warned in amusement.

There was indeed a set of crutches next to the bed that Robinton had been laid up in for the past two days. They looked a little short, but after a moment of fiddling with them Menolly discovered how to make them longer. She adjusted them to the height of her shoulders, then adjusted them a little higher. Hopefully it would be enough; if she adjusted them anymore they might fall into a pile of rods and screwy-bits.

When Menolly returned, Robinton was sitting on the loveseat that Menolly had occupied before, holding a glass of wine, and looking awkward. It wasn't really the awkwardness of a Journeyman being called into the Masterharper's presence suddenly and unexpectedly (or, alternately, far-too-expectedly)...he sort of looked like he really wanted to taste the wine but felt that it might be impolite to indulge in that while Sebell was speaking.

"Menolly's returned," Sebell said, breaking off his small talk and stating the obvious with a touch of humor. "With some...strange instruments of torture? I think."

"It's cross-Crafting at its finest--adjustable crutches," Menolly said. "Smiths and Healers. And yes, they are also instruments of torture; I have been instructed by the Healers to beat you with these, Robinton, if you don't use them."

"Healing through intimidation...that's a new technique," Robinton offered, as if he wasn't sure humor would be appreciated from his end on this particular morning.

"_Brekke_ said that?" Sebell inquired, surprised.

Menolly half-shrugged. "I _interpreted_ her facial expressions."

Sebell laughed. "You know, Robinton, if Master Menolly is being...overly _cruel_ to you...let me know..."

Menolly rolled her eyes, and propped the crutches next to the arm of the loveseat.

"On the contrary, everyone has been far, far kinder than I have any right to expect," Robinton said. "Thank you."

"It's nothing," Menolly said, and rounded Robinton's outstretched legs and sat down next to him, the leather of the cushion squeaking slightly. Her firelizards arranged themselves behind them again, this time out-of-order.

Robinton twisted around to look at them.

"Are they bothering you?" Menolly asked.

"Oh no! No, no, no. I'm just curious, is all. They're staring at me."

"You're staring at _them_," Menolly pointed out.

"True, true." He stopped twisting around. "Am I being rude?"

"Firelizards think you're being rude only if they're asking for a caress or food and you're ignoring them."

"I see."

Menolly reached over and scooped Pol out of his resting spot. He glanced at her in surprise, but was quite amiable to being placed in Robinton's lap. She got a blurry mix of impressions from him, the foremost being that it had been very long since he'd sat with The Harper.

_Very long indeed,_ she agreed silently. She was a little surprised at the firelizard's chain of thought; F'nor had made it clear that Canth didn't exactly believe that Robinton was Robinton, but bronze Pol didn't seem to think there was a difference. She wasn't sure what to make of that; was the flighty firelizard missing some important distinction? Or were the dragon and rider letting too much thought get in the way of things? "They like their eye ridges scratched," Menolly instructed Robinton, who was torn about how to react to the firelizard in his lap. "Pol here likes the edges of his wings stroked too, which is a little unusual; firelizards tend to be sensitive about things touching their wings."

"Not surprising," Robinton said. "Wild firelizards probably have to check that their wings are clear before launching into flight."

"I never thought about it that way," Menolly said. "But I'm sure you're right."

Robinton paid careful attention to the little bronze's eye ridges with a long finger, gently scratching, and was rewarded with Pol twisting around and half-climbing up the front of his shirt, searching for more caresses. Robinton was delighted, a large grin appearing on his face, and he gently stroked the bronze's wing edges as instructed earlier. "How did you tame them?" he asked.

The question had been inevitable. "That's something you can't know," Menolly said.

"No?" Robinton asked.

"Firelizards have had a...considerable impact...on our times. We're not sure what would happen if you managed to tame one in your time."

"They are more than just pets," Robinton surmised.

Menolly made an indeterminate sound, and glanced at Sebell for help. Sebell played stupid, enjoying her discomfort.

"I'll stop asking," Robinton said, catching on. "Pol, hmmm?"

"The baby of the group," Menolly said. "Beauty is my queen, Rocky and Diver are the other two bronzes, then there's brown Brownie, Lazybones, and Mimic, green Auntie One and Auntie Two, and the blue is Uncle." She hesitated. "I was fourteen when I named them," she admitted.

"Nothing wrong with the names," Robinton said graciously, and fell prey to Pol's attention-craving with very little resistance when the bronze tugged at his hand with a paw.

"I do, actually, pay attention to him but he pretends that I don't," Menolly murmured.

"Attention-hog, eh? Fitting then that he's a Harper Hall firelizard, I'd expect," Robinton said.

"Well, I suppose it takes one to know one," Sebell said. "You certainly got our attention with that stunt you pulled, Journeyman."

Menolly blinked and glanced at Sebell.

Robinton colored, and stopped playing with the bronze firelizard. He also set down the glass of wine he'd been holding on the stone table before him. "That wasn't intended as a ploy to get attention, sir," he said humbly, his body language speaking loudly of his embarrassment.

"And what was it intended to be, then, Harper?" Sebell asked, steepling his fingers before him and resting his chin on their tips.

Robinton looked at Sebell of a long moment gravely, and it was obvious that he was trying to pull his thoughts together, choosing his words carefully, thinking he was swimming in very dangerous waters.

Menolly touched Robinton's shoulder before he could continue his tale on his own initiative; he turned to her immediately, his expression questioning. "While we are going to think what you did was monumentally stupid no matter how you phrase your side of the situation, I think I speak for both of us," and she nodded at Sebell, having an idea of what he intended here even though she had thought the matter laid to rest already, "when I say we would like to know the full and real reasons why you persuaded F'lon to take himself and Simanith and you into the sky at night in a thunderstorm."

Robinton blinked at her. "You believe I was about to lie to you--" and he hesitated, trying to choose a title for her. "Sir" obviously would not work. As quickly as he flailed for a word he chose one, however. "--Master?"

"I'm saying that you're a method actor, Robinton, and sometimes someone needs to remind you of that, because by the time something leaves your mouth, _you_ believe it. It's a marvelous tool to get a crowd fired up, but it's not always wise to keep drinking your own wine."

He stared at her for a long moment, digesting that, and Menolly wondered if, perhaps, this young Robinton hadn't quite started doing mental acrobatics with himself yet. Well, either way, a reminder wouldn't hurt him.

"So what do you want to know?" he asked eventually.

"The stupid stuff behind your idea that you might not have mentioned to F'lon," Masterharper Sebell said.

"--such as--?" Robinton asked, not quite understanding.

Menolly shrugged next to him. "You were woken up because you had a bellyache and a sudden case of diarrhea, went outside to the privy, did your business, and then decided to play connect-the-dots with the stars above for a while in case you needed the privy again, which led you into discovering a new constellation in a zig-zag shape that was the tinder for the idea of riding around in a thunderstorm on a dragon."

Sebell made a sound that might have been a stifled chuckle. "Or, on a more serious note...you think you discovered something that you think that we didn't want you to know," he said. "Which is why you tried this stunt on your own, without consulting any of us."

"That's..._closer_...to what--" Robinton began carefully.

"All right then," Menolly said. "You can't get into any more trouble than you're already in. Where did this thunderstorm idea come from?"

Robinton looked from one Harper to another, but they were unified and waiting patiently for him. Their expressions were not unkind, but they both made it clear in their own ways that he wasn't going to get out of this one. Robinton looked down at his feet, one booted and unharmed and the other unbooted and swaddled in fresh bandages, and heaved a sigh. "Something's wrong with either F'lon or Simanith's ability to go _between_ whens." He briefly waited for a response to this, but when neither Harper made any response, he spread his hands and went forward. "I don't mean to sound arrogant, because it's always simple to look at a Master of another Craft doing something flawlessly and say, 'Oh, that's so easy to do' without having any sort of conception of the Turns and Turns of work it took to become so skilled that it looks easy to onlookers, but...from what I've observed, and what clues I've been able to get out of F'lon...it seems that it should not be as difficult to get back to our own _when_ as it is for them." He glanced at them again to make sure they were following.

"Go on," Sebell said.

Robinton continued. "Which leads me to conclude one of two things...or rather, one of three things...something is different in the circumstances under which F'lon and Simanith now try to jump backwards to our own time. _Or_, F'lon and Simanith are the _between_ whens equivalent of tone-deaf...and as you know a tone deaf person can, through luck or a lot of training hit the right note, but not as consistently as someone with perfect pitch. Or..." and he paused again, a worried look flashing across his mobile face. "Something was harmed or broken within them on their first trip _between_ through times. F'lon took a lightening bolt to his head when we first went into _between_--"

Both Harpers looked alarmed.

"--although he seems in fine shape and he _said_ he had the Healers look at him--"

"Neither Lessa nor F'lar said anything about F'lon having sustained a lightening bolt to the _head_, Robinton," Menolly said uncertainly, sharing a look with Sebell.

Robinton fell silent, and rubbed his palms against his knees. "I didn't notice anything unusual, or him to be in pain, certainly nothing like what I sustained," Robinton said. "He never really answered me straight forward, however, when I asked if he had seen a Healer...he said that _Simanith_ should be fine..." his brow furrowed as he searched his memory. "I just assumed and I suppose we know how _that_ usually ends..."

Sebell un-steepled his fingers. "We'll speak--"

"I'll speak to him," Robinton insisted. "Sir. At this late date there's probably nothing that can be done differently, but I'd rather--"

Not let F'lon think Robinton had tattled on him. Both Harpers nodded their permission.

Robinton cleared his throat a little. "Out of those three choices, the only one we could definitely, ah, test, were the circumstances. Lightning hit us right before we went _between_; logic suggests that it could have been the instigating factor, since dragonriders don't typically--"

"Ride around in thunderstorms because it's a bloody stupid thing to do," Sebell finished.

"Precisely. So we decided we should try to go _between_ after being struck by lightening again. I remembered that some of the wooden holds--"

Menolly's eyebrow made the strangest quirk upwards.

"We don't have thread," Robinton said apologetically. "The woodsie people use the materials at hand--"

"It makes a twisted sort of sense," Menolly allowed finally, but she looked somewhat appalled.

"I remembered some of the wooden holds had metal poles attached to them, to divert the lightning from the sky into the ground in such a way that they don't set the wooden holds on fire. So we took a pole with us. And I held it, just in case lightning doesn't actually strike the same person twice. I didn't consider the ramifications of the lightning going through my hand," and he flexed his bandaged left hand slightly.

"And it never occurred to you to ask Weyrwoman Lessa or Weyrleader F'lar if lightning might have an effect on a dragon pair's ability to go _between_?" Sebell asked.

Robinton was quiet again, and before he spoke, he glanced at the door, as if it might have opened to admit someone when he hadn't been looking. The three Harpers were the only ones in the room, however. He sighed. "Excuse my arrogance again...but on the basis of how they've been trying to train F'lon, I don't think they really know the why or how _between_ works. They just seem to know that it does, if you follow such-and-such steps. This is something I've seen happen in many Crafts, including our own--the method is passed on, but never the logic behind it, lest someone else steal that Master's stagelight by making an improvement on it, or by discovering something new. And _this_ is how important knowledge has gotten lost over the Turns. It's why we don't know so many things that our ancient ancestors obviously did." Robinton's tone had a note of disapproval in it.

"We're not dragonriders; what would we do with such a secret if we knew it?" Menolly asked. "Or, why would they even tell us if we're never going to be able to use the knowledge? I don't ever speak to, say, a Healer about the steps to composing a minuet. Which doesn't mean it's a great big secret, just that a Healer has no need or interest to know, never mind the training to understand it."

"You believe they know more than they've told F'lon?" Robinton asked.

Menolly eventually shook her head, and glanced at Sebell. "No, no, I think your theory is correct, Robinton. I suppose I'm just arguing the other side of things. I know of...a different dragonrider. Who taught himself, mostly outside of the Weyrs because they would not train him. Taught himself and his dragon--or perhaps the other way around--how to _between_ times. I daresay he has more firsthand experience than the Weyrwoman at this point on the matter."

The Masterharper settled back in his chair. "But don't let that go out of this room," Sebell warned.

"I wonder if the natural ability theory is correct," Menolly continued. "My friend swears his dragon always knows what _when_ he's in--which either means he's bragging, or that other dragons don't always know. If the latter, perhaps this all comes down to natural ability."

"And Simanith is something of a dunce at it?" Robinton said. Then he made a face. "I _hate_ saying that. I _like_ Simanith, he's always been very kind to me, particularly when F'lon's trying to scare my breeches wet. Most dragons are very terse, but he has had a good word for me when I needed it."

Menolly gave him a sympathetic pat on the knee. "We know you mean no ill-speaking towards him."

"I would point out your flaw in the plan--well, the one we haven't already expounded on," and Sebell grinned for a moment. It made his face look boyish. "The Dragonriders take the Harpers _between_. Not the other way around. Why would the lightning hitting _you_ affect the outcome, if F'lon was the one who was hit originally?"

Robinton seemed rueful. "I did think of that. I was afraid lightning wouldn't hit the same target twice."

"How true _is_ that?" Menolly queried the room in general.

"That's a good question. We should ask Wansor. Or Fanderal," Sebell suggested. Then he turned back to Journeyman Robinton. "So you're going to do this again? Now that you've discovered that _you_ being hit by lightening has no effect on going _between_?"

Robinton's eyes widened. "No sir," he stated firmly.

A wicked smile appeared on the Masterharper's face. "No? But you've only eliminated one of two possibilities. If we're being _scientific_ about it--"

The young Journeyman that would someday grow up to be the greatest Harper Pern had ever known let out a short laugh. "We've decided to tuck our tail and forget about it."

"Is that a promise?" Menolly asked, while Sebell murmured, "Understandable."

A flush colored Robinton's cheeks again. "I can't put words in _F'lon's_ mouth--"

"Will it make your mind easier if _we_ are willing to hear your craziest schemes out beforehand, and assist you if we think they have merit?" Sebell offered.

Robinton glanced at the door again.

"'We' meaning Menolly and myself."

Robinton's eyebrow quirked.

Sebell's quirked right back. "The Hall and the Weyr see eye-to-eye on many, many, things, but until we start Impressing Apprentices to blue dragons, we're not one in the same, no matter what our detractors say. I believe your observations may ultimately lead to a solution, but you need to be comfortable to share them with us. The dragonriders...are sometimes quick to shoot down something that perhaps _should_ have been heard."

"You are Masterharper, sir. It's within your right to command me to speak."

"Yes, but men commanded thusly tend to leave the little details out, things they think might be considered trivial or stupid. And yet, in this situation, those are the things that may ultimately solve these mysteries."

"We're offering you a partnership in crime," Menolly said. "Take it!"

Robinton was quiet for a long moment. "...because you were my apprentices?" Robinton finally asked.

Although Menolly and Sebell did nothing but become very still for a moment, the firelizards scattered around the room sent up a brief scuffle before quieting.

"How do you figure that?" Sebell asked.

"Body language, Masterharper. You act like intelligent people confronted by a ghost."

Sebell's eyes narrowed, then he sat up and shook a finger at Robinton, reestablishing, perhaps, his dominancy. "Leaps of insight, such as this, is why we want you to come to us with your thoughts."

"I will come to you with my thoughts," Robinton said.

"Good!" Sebell said. "We are in agreement then. Let Master Menolly and I handle them," he said, nodding at the wall, and meaning the Weyrleaders. "Unless you're asked a direct question--then answer. We don't want to cut them out of the loop, and there's no reason to, except for unorthadox ideas that may rub them wrong, which would need to be introduced delicately. We're working towards the same goal, in the end, and we are allies."

"Understood, sir."

"Don't answer questions about 'my friend', however," Menolly countermanded with a laugh.

"No, don't do that. Menolly has no friends. If they discovered she had one--" Sebell looked horrified for a moment.

"You have my discretion," Robinton affirmed.

"Superb."

"Do you need a friend?" Robinton asked Menolly a breath later, obviously feeling that the atmosphere had lightened considerably.

Sebell laughed. "That's a very bad idea, Journeyman. You obviously already have your hands full with that dragonrider companion of yours--adding Menolly to the mix...I couldn't begin to fathom what strange days you'd begin having. She's impossibly demanding."

"I am _not_ a demanding friend!" she protested. "Just ask my friend-without-a-name!"

"So demanding, her friends wish to remain anonymous," Sebell quipped, while rising. Robinton rose with him, and took the crutches that Menolly passed to him. "There _are_ no more schemes-in-progress, correct?"

"None," Robinton confirmed.

"We don't have any either. _Yet._" A wicked smile crossed his face. "I will be returning to the Hall this afternoon, but Master Menolly will remain here with you. Take advantage of her advice, and let her know if you think of anything we should know. Oh, and we promised the Weyrwoman that we'd give you as good of a tongue lashing as F'lon will be getting, but I'm unconvinced that she'll believe us. Bear her punishment in good grace, if she decides to levy one. She was worried terribly about you."

"Yes sir."

"Good. I'll see you both later." And with that, Sebell left the other two Harpers alone in the room together.

"That went well," Menolly told Robinton eventually, after watching him pensively for a while.

"Relatively."

"Is your ego bruised, Journeyman?" she asked with false sympathy and a somewhat evil smile.

"Better that then my bottom. I was in the wrong, after all. Are these things going to come undone while I'm using them?" And he fiddled with the alien-shaped crutches.

"I asked myself the same thing when I carried them up."

"That's not exactly comforting."

"If it helps, I think it's fear of the unknown rather than any inherent instability in the device," Menolly offered. "It has a lot of unusual bits and bobs...but you probably don't need to be a Journeyman Smith to use them."

Robinton made a face and got the crutches under his armpits and slowly steered himself out of the room, with Menolly following.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

Robinton was halfway across the Weyr, headed towards the Craftsmen's area, when he realized he'd abandoned his glass of red wine untouched on the table. He wondered if asking the lovely bronze Pol that Menolly had left with him to get someone to fetch it would be a legitimate use of a firelizard. After all, the only thing worse than wasting a lovely glass of red wine on a lowly Journeyman like him was having it sit there, undrunk.

Pol's tailtip twitched and curled tighter around his throat, tucking itself right above his adam's apple. It was a strange sensation, as if someone was throttling him, but lovingly. Twitching aside, the firelizard continued to doze, and Robinton wasn't entirely sure he'd have any success in getting the beautiful creature to understand his facetious desires anyway, so he let the bronze continue to rest.

If only he could do the same. He'd passed on a nap because the _idea_ of napping after two days abed was intellectually distasteful, but between his whirling thoughts--he'd rather firmly been pulled into the inner circle of the sitting Masterharper, and he wasn't sure that such intimacy was proper, no matter if he someday was to become their Master or not--and his body aching from the use, he suspected he should have perhaps taken the nap anyway.

But he was nearly here now, and Master Menolly had been rather firm on him obtaining more new clothing. So. Even if fatigue was haunting him with each crutched step, making him feel fifty turns older than he actually was, he couldn't give into it.

Robinton didn't stop to consider that knocking on a door with the foot of a crutch rather than his knuckles might be considered rude until he had already done it briskly upon locating the correct Journeyman's quarters. Grimacing to himself, he hoped it wouldn't get anyone into a tizzy. There were some vague grumbling from behind the door that he couldn't quite make out, then a latch clicked, and the door opened. "Yes?"

It was the same Tailor that had brought him and F'lon clothing. Journeyman Camolien. Robinton also remembered the note that had been secreted away among the package, and felt uncomfortable--if anything was, that note was something that he should bring up to Masterharper Sebell or Master Menolly under the terms of their agreement. Still, turning heel and slowly, painfully crutching himself away without another word would make it wildly obvious that he didn't want to talk to this man, and be rude besides, so he put his best face on things for the moment. "Journeyman Tailor. I'm told that I need a more complete wardrobe made, and you're the man to see."

The Tailor looked him up and down, frowning. "Who told you this? Manora?"

"The Masterharper," Robinton said.

"I see. You're the lad that what's-his-face was talking about," the man said, glancing behind himself, presumably to see if his workroom was presentable for visitors.

Robinton's eyebrows rose in interest for a brief instant, but he wiped the expression off of his face just as quickly. Who was "what's-his-face"?

"You look like a flock of wherries stepped on you," the Tailor said, turning back to him and eyeing him critically. "Come in, come in. I don't want you passing out on my doorstep. You should be in bed, not visiting to have clothes fitted for you."

"They told me to nap earlier, and I didn't listen," Robinton admitted.

"You'll listen when you're older. You'll find yourself in mishaps merely so you _can_ take a break!"

"Maybe so," Robinton said, feeling his joints ache.

"I have a stool somewhere in here. What's wrong with your foot? Did you break it?"

"Something like that."

"Huh. You either broke it or you didn't, son. If they're really that confused about it, have them take you to Landing to use the bone-viewing machine."

"Landing?" Robinton asked, finding a stool. The stool was occupied by some folded cloth however. The Tailor noticed and whisked it away, and Robinton perched on it once the seat was clear, laying the crutches across his lap.

"They have you on felis, don't they?" the Tailor asked, peering at him for a second. "Why are you walking about when you're on crutches, _and_ felis?"

Robinton wasn't actually on felis at the moment; he would probably break his neck walking on crutches if he had been. But he didn't enlighten the Tailor, as he suspected he'd just learned a few more things about this time that he shouldn't have. "I can come back later," Robinton offered finally, not really relishing the long walk back to his quarters, only to have to return at some other time.

"No, no. What do you think of this?" and the Tailor tossed some wispy, multi-colored material at Robinton, the likes of which he'd never seen before.

"I don't think this is what the Masterharper had in mind for me," Robinton said, realizing just how fine the material was. Far too nice for the likes of him.

"No, of course not. With winter coming soon, I'm putting _you_ in more wool. I want to put Weyrwoman Lessa in _that_, there's just enough to make a full dress of it for someone of her size. If I make no mistakes. Of course, that's a dream that will never happen. Not yet at least. She's not wearing anything made by _me_. Do you know of any Harper girls of the Weyrwoman's size?"

"I'm only really acquainted with Master Menolly," Robinton said.

"Oh no, that won't do. She's far too tall and has a masculine figure besides. They put her in something orange and fluffy with a low bodice for last Turns' End. I hope she strangled the Tailor who did that to her. With a g-string. She looked _hideous_. I don't care if it was an Ancient pattern...it looked horrible."

Robinton tried to imagine Master Menolly in something "orange and fluffy", and sort of agreed that it would be very difficult to come up with anything that fit that description that would look decent on the tall, angular woman. "She doesn't look bad in a tunic," Robinton suggested.

"She actually doesn't, which had me thinking. Except men's tunics are cut all wrong for a woman's figure, even hers." He took the swathe of cloth back from Robinton, and eyed it. "I wonder..." he glanced at Robinton. "How well do you know her, lad?"

Robinton opened and closed his mouth. "We've met. She ranks me."

"I don't suppose you'd take her something for me?"

"I'd rather not, Journeyman. She might interpret it the wrong way."

The Tailor blinked, thinking about this. "You know, you're right. I'm sure she gets all sorts of strange presents from people who fancy they're in love with her after seeing her sing."

"Singers usually do," Robinton agreed, remembering some of the things his mother had found sent to her. "It might be best for you to approach her directly, if you wish to make something for her. If you'll excuse me for saying so, you're not a callow lad." The man was at least twice Robinton's age.

"I used to be a Master in another Craft, but that's neither here nor there," Camolien said. "You may be right, although it was just an idle thought. I have a lot of those. I had your measurements, but let me take them again," and the Tailor subjected Robinton to a knotted cord. "Are you going to be performing in public at all?"

"No," Robinton said.

"Drat. I'm so bored of the queenriders that I'd settle for you if you were going out in public anywhere. You're not traditionally handsome, but we could make you look good, especially with a gitar hanging from a strap at your side. No use dressing you up however if only that firelizard of yours is going to see," and he nodded at the bronze on Robinton's shoulder.

Robinton didn't elaborate that Pol wasn't his.

"Do you have any love interests?"

"No," Robinton said.

"Spouses?"

"That doesn't fall under 'love interest'?" Robinton asked.

"Haha, you're an idealist I see."

"Perhaps," Robinton allowed.

"Children? No, wait, of course not. No lovers or spouses, and you're not a dragonrider. And you're an _idealist_. It'd be pretty pitiful if I tried to design something to impress your children anyway. Particularly if they don't exist."

The more Robinton listened to the Tailor prattle on, the more he suspected that the note hadn't been directly connected to him. Of course, on the flip side, perhaps he was prattling on to ease Robinton's suspicions. Robinton certainly knew how to make a self-centered speech about some trivial aspect of music politics on demand, just to bore someone so much that they made an excuse to leave.

Still, he found his mind wandering away, distracted by other thoughts and pain, and fatigue. He stood when the Tailor had him stand, sat when he was allowed to sit, and generally did what he was told.

So when the Tailor asked him for his name, he was caught utterly flat-footed. "Pardon?"

"Your name. I need to know who to send this to. It was embarrassing last time to wave my hands at Manora so mysteriously when I needed to deliver your items. 'You know, _the_ Harper. What do you _mean_ the Weyr is full of Harpers? I have to specify one?'" He snorted. "She told me '_The_ Harper' was Master Robinton, and several turns _dead_. What's your name, lad?"

Robinton had enough aplomb not to stutter, but when he heard himself say, "Petiron", he had the overwhelming urge to step out of his body and strangle himself. Bloody foolish of him not to come up with a better false name...it wasn't like he didn't have a few he'd used before, on some of his more clandestine Journeys.

Of course, what was said was said, and he had to hope that Petiron had been forgotten over the turns. But he felt disgusted that not only he had to _look_ like his sire, but had to run around bearing his name as well. _Stupid, Robinton. Extraordinarily stupid. Not that you've been doing anything all that particularly bright recently. What's happened to you?_ He'd have to admit he'd used that name to Master Menolly too, and probably Manora, else how would he get his new clothing?

"Petiron! Now there's a good, strong name," the Tailor prattled on. Luckily, all he needed was the name, and a few moments later, before Robinton could crack and say something like, "But all my friends call me--" to cover his mistake, they were done, and he was being shooed out of the man's workroom as if he resembled some straying waterfowl.

So Robinton slowly and tiredly crutched back across the Weyr to the quarters he and F'lon had been put up in. "Petiron," he told Pol in disgust. The firelizard chirped at him in query. "They need to break me back to Apprentice. My head hasn't been screwed on straight since I got here. _Petiron._"

Pol's tiny bronze paw patted at his ear, then held it to steady himself on Robinton's shoulder in a pinching grip.

"Ow," Robinton said. "Stop that. You're too small to be boxing my ears for me. Let's go tell Master Menolly how wonderfully idiotic we've been."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

_T -_

_I passed on your note. This is the __last__ time, though; I've no time to "chaperone" your love affair with Petiron. He's looking a little rough; banged his foot up or something. Come here in person and cheer him up, and leave me out of it, unless you need a costumer for your beloved Hall. I've work to do!_

_~ C_

Teslay read the note again, perplexed. Petiron? Who was Petiron?

Oh how humiliating if he'd mistaken what had been going on in the first place...and yet, and _yet_ he _knew_ that voice quite well. Strong, deep, stage-trained, taking advantage of the melodic depth it had. It couldn't be someone _else_...could it?

His note had been vague, even if it had gone to the wrong person. Perhaps Master Robinton was just using a fake name. Certainly if Camolien had twigged to the man's identity he would never let Teslay hear the end of it, and certainly wouldn't go on thinking this was a long-distance love affair. The man didn't know how to keep his mouth shut. That was why he'd had to switch Crafts in the first place, or so Teslay had heard...

Well, that was water under the bridge.

Petiron.

Master Teslay got to his feet, and gestured at his firelizard. "Come here Sapho. We're going to take a look in the archives. If we're lucky we'll be enlightened."

As far as research went, this wasn't difficult. Teslay pulled the short version of Robinton's biography out of its cubby, and there it was--Petiron. Robinton's father.

Which was even more perplexing. No Harper worth his salt would use a family member's name as his own. It was the sort of thing lads tried to do, the first thing anyone thought of if they didn't want to use the name they were born with...they would panic and appropriate a brother's name, or a cousin's name, or an uncle's name. Use _that_. He couldn't believe that _Robinton_ would panic at such a simple subterfuge--would he?

But if the relationship was so close, father and son, and the man _had_ sounded like Robinton, perhaps what he had here was not a piss-poor excuse for a fake name--perhaps it _was_ Petiron.

Why in the world would they bring _Petiron_ forward?

"Are you looking for something, Master?" a Journeyman Archivist asked from behind him.

"Fodder," Teslay said. "Surely Masterharper Robinton has a larger biography than this one scroll?" He waggled it at the younger man.

"Of course. I can't let you into the area where Masterharper Robinton's possessions are stored, but we definitely have more than that. I believe it's a _book_, however."

"A book?"

"Yes, Master Tagetarl has been working on it, on and off, with Masters Sebell and Menolly. They have a few rough drafts using the new printing machine available; I know Master Domick has been consulting one regularly for his latest project. He's a popular topic, Master Robinton. I suppose he's been gone enough turns now that people feel as if they're allowed to sing about him without his specter showing up behind them and having a few words to _say_ about it. Come with me, let's see if we can find one of the copies..."

"It _would_ be 'interesting' to have him turn up in the flesh and become critical about your song," Teslay agreed with a laugh at his own self-directed in-joke, as he followed the Archivist through the Archives towards the area where one of the radically new printing machines was installed.

"'Interesting' would be putting it mildly, if he were walking about in the _flesh_. Ah, here we go," and the Journeyman began moving bound books around on a shelf off to the side of the printing machine. "Yes, yes, here it is!" He pulled it out of its spot and presented it to Master Teslay.

"Great, you have my thanks. Does it need to stay here, or can I bring it to my quarters?"

"You can sign it out, but be sure to return it when your day is up. That looks like it's the last one left."

Teslay nodded. "That will be fine. I just need to verify some things, then I'll be back with it."

So a few minutes later, after signing for the book, Teslay was back in his quarters with it in his hands. "Let's do some research, my friend," he said to his firelizard.

Then he sat down and read.

The "book" was truly in a rough state; it consisted of transcribed interviews with various people, basic facts like dates of birth and death, and songs that the man had composed throughout his life. The information was organized only very vaguely; the start of the book had transcriptions of a small handful of people who had known him when he was young, and the end of the book had many, many interviews with people who knew him at his height of popularity.

Insofar as his family life went...Robinton's mother Merelan was mentioned frequently--it seemed everyone who had known her had a good word. Petiron, in contrast was only mentioned a few times, and only at length by Master Menolly and Master Domick. Teslay learned with surprise that Petiron was formally recognized as Menolly's Master during her Apprenticeship; it had been recorded retroactively. Surprising, as everyone he knew considered her to be Robinton's Apprentice. Domick, on the other hand, had gone through an Apprenticeship with Petiron formally; Petiron had been the previous Composition Master.

So why had Petiron ended up all the way out at Half-Circle Sea Hold?

Given that the book was about Robinton, and not the Harper's father, Teslay didn't learn why.

However...it was very interesting that Menolly had had such a close relationship to both Petiron, and his son Robinton. Did anyone know that she'd been taught by both? Well, surely some people knew, but it obviously wasn't common knowledge. Menolly had a lot to say in her transcripts about his kindness. Domick said he was strict but fair.

But why would they bring _Petiron_ forward? It didn't make sense. Even if Menolly out of some strange affection for the man had wanted to, he didn't see that there was any evidence Masterharper Sebell or anyone else would assist her in a pointless endeavor.

In the end, Teslay decided to pester Camolien again; was he _sure_ that the man's name was Petiron? Because, you know, it would be distressing if his "love note" went to Master Robinton's _father_, who was more than a few turns into the _grave_. He had no desire to canoodle with a long-dead elderly corpse. Idiot Tailor. Can't even facilitate a love match properly by giving the note to the right _person_.

#

Camolien didn't even grumble when the blue form of Sapho appeared in the air above his head. He'd expected it. There was something fishy here. Camolien wasn't sure which part of it was fishy, though...Teslay had used him to pass on notes before, which is why he figured sooner or later the Harper Hall would cave in and get him positioned there, he'd done so much "work" for them to date. The tall lad seemed vaguely familiar; a bit vacant too, but they had that foot dressed up smartly, along with his hand, which excused the blank-eyed expression; lad was likely in pain. He'd done _something_ to himself, sure enough. Probably when he and the dragonrider had been separated from the Weyr. It seemed odd that Dragonriders would get up to Harper tricks, skulking about, but then again the Harper Hall and Benden had been bedding each other for so long it wasn't surprising they'd rubbed off on one another.

So he coaxed the blue firelizard down, removed the note, read it...

And the pattern of the cloth became clear.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen**

"You don't look so good," Journeyman Robinton said to his friend, as F'lon awoke him out of his tired doze by sitting on his bed and making it move about.

"You can't believe the reaming just I got from--"

"Let me guess--the Weyrwoman?"

F'lon sighed. "It wasn't it wasn't...warranted, I suppose. I'd expected it since the day we _came up_ with the scheme. But she frightens me."

"Phobia."

"What?" F'lon asked, reaching for Robinton's bandaged foot.

"Mm? Excuse me? I was clearing my throat. Go on." And he noisily cleared his throat a few times, rubbing at his adam's apple.

F'lon pulled back from Robinton's swaddled appendage. "You need to be careful about that, Harper. People might think that you're saying things under your breath."

"Actually, I pretty much outright stated it this time," Robinton said with a grin.

F'lon rolled his amber eyes. "I'm not discussing it. I've decided that she's afflicted with the same thing small men are."

Robinton's brow furrowed, and his mind went to a strange place. "Er...F'lon, she's a _woman_. I'm not sure that--"

"I mean _height_."

Comprehension dawned. "Ah. That makes more sense."

"Yes, it does. Given she's about as tall as my breastbone. Funny how you didn't _twig_ to that right away."

"Well, you're _all_ small to me."

F'lon eyed him.

"I mean that in the 'height' sense of the word this time," Robinton hurried to clarify.

F'lon continued to eye him.

"I'm not giving you the proper salve for your bruised ego, am I?"

"No. No you're not." And the bronzerider sighed gustily. "But that's fine. I'll survive. You?"

"Give me a hand up," Robinton said, and extended his hand.

F'lon took it, and with a powerful pull, helped the Harper up out of the bed. "Are you going somewhere?"

"The numbweed just wore off my arse," the Harper said primly, and resettled himself on his stomach, with his wounded foot mostly hanging off of the bed so he wouldn't put any weight on _that_.

"Do I need to announce this to all and sundry now that you've told me about it?"

"Don't worry about it," Robinton said, resting his chin on his arm. "I'll write a song about it later."

The other man laughed. "How did they treat you?"

"Well enough. The Masterharper called me an attention hog, which is a standard insult in our Craft, then cozened me into a conspiracy."

F'lon blinked. "Really? What type of conspiracy?"

Robinton was working himself up to say something theatrical, when there was a knock on the door. "Come in," he said, letting himself be distracted.

Master Menolly poked her head in, and saw that they were just lounging on the bed, so she brought the rest of herself into the room and closed the door behind her. "Manora said you were looking for me, Robinton?" she asked.

"Yes," Robinton said. "I wanted to return your firelizard to you," and he pointed to Pol, who was curled up on the bed next to him.

Menolly chuckled. "No need; he'll find me when he wants to. I think he enjoys your company."

A half-smile appeared on Robinton's face, and he tried not to let it get out of control. "I see. I like him too." Then he cleared his throat, and gave her an apologetic look. "The Tailor will be looking to deliver some clothing to Petiron in a few days."

Master Menolly blinked at him, and looked perplexed.

"That's how I felt, the moment I heard the name pass my lips. I had something of an out-of-body experience where I wanted to strangle myself to death for choosing that name. I'm sorry, I deserve to have my ears boxed for that one."

"Hm," Menolly said. "No, that's not the name I'd have chosen for you," she said with a little laugh. "Had you been thinking, what _would_ you have chosen?"

"Something I've used before for simplicity's sake," he said.

"Such as...?"

"Meron, or Ninth."

Menolly's eyes widened for a second. "Don't use 'Meron'. It...has a bit of infamy attached to it. It will certainly get you a second look."

"Really?" Robinton asked. "That's a pity. It's a shortening and rearranging of my mother's name, Merelan."

"I wouldn't use the other either."

"Why not?" Robinton asked, curious.

"It would be considered somewhat blasphemous in some circles. It would be noticed."

"I see. So they're both on par with 'Petiron' I suppose, or worse. Zair?" Robinton asked.

Menolly shook her head. "That one has a well-known connection to you."

"Name me," Robinton said.

F'lon opened his mouth.

"Not you. I know what _you_ will name me. Master Menolly; will you do the honor of naming me?"

F'lon smirked.

Menolly pointed a finger at the golden firelizard riding her shoulder. "Beauty." She then pointed at the bronze on the bed. "Pol. Are you _sure_ I'm any better?"

"I'm sure I will be sorely tempted to do away with 'Robinton' in favor of whatever nomenclature you decide to bestow upon me," he assured her graciously.

The Harper woman raised a skeptical eyebrow. Then she said, "Metenalbar."

F'lon leaned forward, looking concerned. "Do you need a handkerchief?"

Robinton swatted him hard enough that it was audible to the room. "Metenalbar it is," Robinton said. "Am I a weyrbrat?"

"Yes, hoping desperately to shorten your name, but at this late date it seems unlikely," Menolly said with a smile. "Particularly since we're not putting you anywhere near the Hatching grounds."

F'lon chuckled. "It _would_ put a wrinkle in things to return to our time as F'lon and R'ton," he said.

"Precisely," Menolly said. "Although it has a sort of ring to it, F'lon and R'ton. Not that the Hall wishes to lose you. Quite the contrary!"

"But I am the musically-named Metenalbar!" Robinton said. "Which is far, far better than 'R'ton' or 'Robinton'. So there will be no wrinkles."

"You'll still be Petiron to the Weyr," Menolly said. "But we're probably going to move you away, to, ah, meet that friend of mine. So don't use your new name until then."

"Friend?" F'lon asked.

Menolly put one long finger to her mouth, then winked at Robinton. He nodded slightly to show that he understood.

"I have some things I have to attend to this afternoon, so I can't really stay--I just wanted to know if you needed anything."

Both men shook their heads.

"Send Pol back to me if you do, but it might take awhile before I can come. Otherwise, stay out of trouble. Petiron--" and she looked right at Robinton. "I'd advise you to avoid the other Harpers; the Weyrsinger is old enough to possibly have known the original bearer of the name, and he might very well recognize _you_ as well, young though you are."

"I intend to nap the aches away," Robinton promised.

"I'd join you if I could; I've been up since dawn!" and she laughed. "_Benden's_ dawn!"

"We'll be fine, Master Menolly," F'lon assured her. "Don't worry about us."

"I'll hold you to that," Menolly said. Then she nodded at them and ducked back out of the room.

The two young men were quiet for a while, then F'lon spoke. "The name--"

"Is _fine_," Robinton said.

"You don't think it's a little..." and the dragonrider made a wiggle of his fingers.

"I think Metenalbar is a bass, not a baritone, and probably a Lord of considerable girth, but it will do just fine. I'm not about to _insult_ her by choosing another one. Not after that production I made about her naming me."

"The things we do for love," F'lon said.

Robinton's eyebrows shot up. "_What_? It's not about 'love'; it's about being a decent human being. She's also my superior...I'm not about to argue about a name. Are you still eyeing her?"

"_I_ was never the one eyeing her. 'I think he enjoys your company,'" he said in a fruity falsetto. Then he dropped his voice to his chest. "'I like him too.' Were you really talking about that little bronze guy over there?"

"You do terrible, terrible impressions, my friend. And yes, we _were_. I _do_ like him; he's a very amiable little chap, so long as you keep giving him scratches on his eyeridges, and stroking his wings." Robinton demonstrated, and Pol quickly unfolded himself and started begging for more caresses.

"Okay, fine. But I'm calling you 'Mental' for short."

Robinton sighed. "Metenalbar is not fifteen minutes old, and yet you make fun of him!"

"He's having an accelerated childhood. Pretend he's old enough to attend classes with a Harper. I'm just saying what any child of five turns would say."

Robinton relented. "You know, you're right. I shouldn't try to push you beyond your mental limitations."

This time, F'lon was the one whacking his friend hard enough to be audible. And they wrangled good-naturedly for a while before the rest of Robinton's numbweed wore off and he resorted to dosing himself with felis.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Four new chapters, hooray! And for those who don't know--I uploaded the completed story "Flight" not too long ago--with two different endings. If you're interested in Robinton/Menolly, take a gander.

Next up: I'm actually going to get a chapter of my Talent fic "Boxed" up. Probably not today, but within the week. I didn't actually mean to neglect it for a year! Click on my profile if you're interested in reading it (or any of my other fics). :)

And as always--many many thanks for everyone who reads and reviews!

Edit: I knew I forgot an author's note...Sebell and Menolly's kids don't exist in this AU.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen**

_Hello, Harper._

The words were clearly audible, although Robinton had resorted hours ago to chanting drum measures under his breath as each jarring step of the runnerbeast below him proved that he was not yet healed. How...optimistic of him to go perkily self-proclaim a clean writ of health that morning, when Menolly had interrupted his meal and ordered him (in the guise of asking) to gather his things and come with her.

Menolly and her runner suddenly lurched towards Robinton. He blinked stupidly, first at Master Menolly as she reached over to grab the reins from him and get his runner to stop, and then at the small white dragon sitting in the middle of the road before them.

When had that happened?

Robinton had almost ridden his runner right into the dragon, although now that he wasn't entirely occupied by the harsh pain in his left hand and right leg he noticed that the beast below him was trembling, partly out of fear of the dragon, and partly out of nervousness at disobeying its rider. The poor runner had been well-trained to a fault, obeying an oblivious oaf like him, and now it was on the edge of a breakdown. He gathered his reins from Menolly and swung the runner around, taking it away from the strange, small dragon (which wasn't particularly intimidating insofar as dragons went, regardless of his mount's opinion of it), and he found a place on the side of the road where he could stiffly swing down, tie the reins to a small tree in case the distance from the dragon still wasn't enough for the animal, and try to assess everything he'd missed in his daze of beats and jostles and pain. A small, bizarrely-colored dragon wasn't something you saw every day, after all.

"Good morning, Ruth!" Master Menolly called out in greeting to the dragon. "Bear with us for a moment..." Then she turned back down the road and tied her runner near Robinton's so that her beast wouldn't have a breakdown either. "I didn't actually expect to find them literally sitting in the middle of the road," she said. "Oh. You look terrible," she added, looking him up and down sharply.

"...I've felt better," Robinton admitted. "But I will survive. Is this your anonymous friend? I can't say I've ever seen a _white_ dragon before..."

"Unfortunately you won't be able to say it now, either," she warned him gently. "He's agreed to teach Journeyman Metenalbar on the condition of remaining anonymous."

Robinton wondered how a white dragon in any circumstance could be anonymous. And why they would help himself and Menolly. "Are they ostracized by the Weyr?" Robinton asked. It was an unfortunate trait of humanity, to exclude the unusual and make them outcasts, and dragonriders, he knew, were still prone to that fault and all the others belonging to man.

Menolly opened then closed her mouth. "Yes and no. Not precisely. It's a bit complex; the rider's rank is not that of a typical dragonrider." Which was a bit of an anomaly Robinton saw instantly; dragonriders, once they Impressed, gave up any prior rank they had in favor of their new rank as dragonrider.

"But it leaves him free to instruct me, and F'lon by proxy."

Menolly nodded. "Yes."

"Well that was monumentally dumb of the Weyr," Robinton said frankly. Then he realized what he'd just said out loud, and flushed. "My apologies--"

She gave him a stern look for a moment. Then she spoke. "Why do you say so?" Menolly asked, overlooking his gaffe for now.

Robinton hesitated, but she didn't seem wroth with him, regardless of the look she'd turned on him for a moment. "Well, you don't treat someone as if they're neither fish nor fowl and expect them to toe your rules. Being excluded creates resentment in the best of people. We could be up to something nefarious, you and I. And the Weyr may never know. Luckily we _aren't_, but the dragonrider will hold his tongue either way, yes?"

Master Menolly stared at him for the longest moment. "There's a lesson somewhere in that," she said.

"I don't know," Robinton said. "It is just my observation."

She smiled. "Come."

As they walked back towards the dragonrider pair, this time without their nervous runners, Beauty--along with some others of Menolly's fair--launched into the air and swirled around the white dragon, greeting him with chitters and an acrobatic aerial display. The dragonrider, still in his weyrhide, watched them approach with arms confidently akimbo.

"Dragonrider," Menolly greeted him. Anonymous indeed.

"Master Menolly," the man said. Up close, he looked a little younger than Menolly, perhaps even younger than Robinton himself, but he did not concede rank to Menolly, which meant the man was considered of equal or higher rank than Menolly, aberrant white dragon regardless. Robinton wondered if that rank, whatever it was, was _because_ of the dragon, or in spite of it. Then the dragonrider spoke. "Ruth says hello. Is this your Journeyman?"

_Aberrant?_ A voice, like the dragonrider's but different, said.

Robinton felt deep chagrin. Here he was assessing this new situation as coolly as he'd restring a gitar, all while forgetting the human--and dragon--element. He'd also forgotten that dragons seemed to be able to read thoughts. But even if they _hadn't_ been able to "hear" him, it was an unforgivable thing to think anyway, especially considering a hundred, a _thousand_ people probably had voiced such things behind their backs, and possibly even to their faces. Unusual things, and people, stood out as targets. It was shameful to add to that himself. "My deepest apologies, dragon," he said, and bowed low. A sense of shame prickled his cheeks. He really _hadn't_ meant to insult the dragon.

_I was not insulted, Harper,_ the dragon said. _Just curious._

"That is very kind of you, although my apology still stands." And Robinton rose from his bow, smiling a little shyly at the dragon at the dragon as he did so. Then he glanced away from the white dragon, and found the dragonrider and Master Menolly watching him. "Master?" he queried after a moment, when neither spoke.

"Ruth, this is Journeyman Metenalbar. Journeyman, this is the white dragon Ruth, and his rider."

The rider nodded to Robinton. "Good to meet you."

"Likewise, dragonrider," Robinton said.

Ruth's rider continued to regard Robinton with a frank, although not hostile gaze. Robinton had the impression again that the man was at least of equal rank to Menolly, if not higher. He held himself in that way people used to power did.

_Holder,_ Robinton thought to himself. Then, _Lord, even. Yes, that'd sneak a waterfowl into the tunnel snake's den. The line of inheritance must have been unusually complicated, though, for him to keep his birth-rank. I'm fairly certain there's several cases in the Archives where an elder son passed on his inheritance upon Impression to a brother, even for one of the major holds._ Well, that would explain the man's wish to be anonymous--to think, a Lord butting in on a matter Hall and Weyr were trying to shush up and keep quiet...even when, technically, the Hall was calling in favors. If anything ever got out, it could well look like a conspiracy from several angles, particularly to people not involved. Robinton gave the man a deep bow--which wasn't a good idea, he realized as his back cramped up along the still-healing mark from the lightning. Still, he managed to hide his pain and straighten up from the bow. "Lord."

"You said--" the Lord began, turning to Master Menolly.

"And I didn't lie," Menolly said. "He figured it out on his own, I think. Metenalbar? How did you figure?"

Robinton raised his eyebrows. Did she really want him to explain out loud?

She nodded in answer to his unspoken question.

He turned back to the man. "Body language, Lord Dragonrider. You hold yourself like a leader, but you're too young for a Craftmaster, you're not riding a bronze so you're not a Weyrleader, and it's fairly common in history for a Lord Holder to pass away and leave a young heir in his place." Robinton didn't mention the part where between the odd-colored dragon and the man's rank as a Lord it was almost certain that his theory to Menolly not a few minutes ago held true--the man's loyalty to the Weyrs wouldn't be particularly strong or fanatical, due in large part to his mis-colored dragon and his rank and duties as Lord Holder.

After a few moments, a slow smile appeared on the man's face. "Which Hold?" he challenged.

Robinton's eyes flicked over the man's clothes, but they told him nothing, beyond that they were made passably well to his untrained eye. All the styles he'd seen were suitably...off, from what he was used to, and the riding leathers were like Benden's, which told him nothing. So he studied the man's face, and his build. Blue eyes, dark hair. Reminded him of Telgar, or Ruatha, but Robinton knew both Lords from his time by sight, and this man didn't look like direct offspring from either line. But the facial structure reminded him of the first place he'd been sent to as a Journeyman--this man could easily have been a cousin or nephew of someone there.

"High Reaches," Robinton said.

The man seemed to stand back on his heels a little. Surprised, and not sure he liked being surprised. Still, his voice held no malice. "How so?"

"I was stationed at High Reaches Hold when I was fifteen," Robinton said. "In the winter months, you learn everybody by face."

The Lord chuckled. "Yes, you do, don't you? So you're from High Reaches, Journeyman?"

"No, just stationed there for a couple of years."

"Why did you leave?"

"My Master wanted me elsewhere."

The Lord grunted. "Master Menolly here says you're to learn, best as we can, how to go _between_ times. _When_ are you from?"

"I seem to be from fifty-odd turns in your past, sir," Robinton said.

"You'd be Lytol's age, then, hmm?"

"Who?" Robinton asked.

"Nevermind," the man said. "I'm thinking out loud. Do you mind if we run off with him, Menolly?"

"Not at all. Are you going to go visit Lytol?"

The Lord looked startled. "Do you want me to?"

Menolly laughed. "No. To be perfectly honest, we were reluctant to contact you." Menolly shook her head. "But time is working against us, and so we must master time."

"You're channeling Master Robinton," the Lord said. "That sounded like something he would say."

Robinton was sorely tempted to say, "What?" but kept his mouth shut.

"No," and Menolly shook her head, laugh lines crinkling at the corner of her eyes. "I'm merely making up lyrics for a song I'll never be able to sing."

"Is Master Robinton someone I'm going to meet too?" Robinton queried, since it looked like a perfect opening to muddy the waters about his identity.

"No, no," Menolly said. "He passed away a few turns ago."

"That's a pity," Robinton said. "He sounds like an orator of considerable wisdom, intellect, and charm."

"Oh, _certainly_, but he could be full of himself, too. Part of Sebell's and my jobs were to tackle him and sit on him when his creativity overrode his _common sense_." Her tone was barbed, but so lightly that he doubted the Lord dragonrider would notice.

"Really?" the Lord said in interest, as if this were new to him.

"Mmm hmm. I'll be back to ride with Metenalbar back to the Weyr in two hours; is that sufficient?"

"We will be here, even if it turns into an object lesson," the dragonrider said.

"Heh," Menolly said. Then she clapped Robinton on the back, on the side that wasn't wounded. The gesture was surprisingly hearty, but then Menolly was a tall woman with a solid, wiry frame. "Take care of yourself, Journeyman. We'll speak later. "

"Of course, Master Menolly." He watched her turn and walk away. When he glanced back to the dragonrider, the man gestured with one gloved hand towards the white dragon, Ruth.

"We're a bit conspicuous as you can see, Ruth and I, so we'll go about this in a more secluded spot. You've ridden--nevermind, of course you have, Menolly told me about F'lon. And I see you have riding leathers. Ruth's stronger than he looks; don't worry about hurting him--"

Robinton pulled the riding leathers that had been gifted to him (and that had once been his) out of his pack, and donned them. Then he bowed again to the dragon, thanking him, and followed the Lord dragonrider's instructions for mounting the small, white dragon.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Sixteen**

An entire two sevendays passed, and four lessons with the Lord-Who-Was-Not-Named and his white sport dragon. It was a simple matter for Robinton to figure out that the Lord was Lord Jaxom, and that Robinton had been wrong about his Hold. It was Ruatha, not High Reaches.

It seemed odd that they had gone to such great pains to hide the Lord's identity when the white dragon was a dead giveaway and it took only a moment of keeping his eyes open during a Gather to figure out who he was. Perhaps it was a point of pride, or something. Robinton wasn't quite sure.

Going _between_ whens was simple. Or at least, that was Robinton's first thought; he'd always had a vivid imagination and detailed minds-eye, and Ruth got a good image from him on their first try. Lord Jaxom had seemed surprised by that, and had tested them a few more times, speaking quietly to Ruth sometimes vocally and sometimes in his head as evidenced by a faraway look. They went _between_ from place to place without hiccup.

Robinton was sensitive to other Crafts, however, so he didn't blurt anything out. Rarely was anything more offensive than a newcomer claiming brashly that _your_ Craft was so very easy. Instead, he thought about it for a long while, and asked F'lon, when they were sitting back-to-back in front of the little cot hold they'd started to use as a base for their own experiments, about it. "What happens if a dragon doesn't get a good image from your mind?" Robinton asked.

"Dead," F'lon said.

"Oh," Robinton said.

F'lon let out a long sigh, which Robinton could feel through his shoulders. He was no longer in constant nagging pain from the lightning strike...he just felt stiff in his hand and foot from time to time. Menolly's ceramic spheres were helping him keep mobility in his left hand, however.

"Well, not just that," F'lon said, relenting after silence had thickened between them. "It's very easy to become dead--we humans _remember_ better than dragons do. The dragon trusts the rider to have a better head for such things, just like the rider trusts that the dragon isn't going to fall out of the sky. The dragon's instinct is to trust the rider's image first, before trusting themselves. If the rider's image is faulty, and the dragon doesn't catch it he'll try to take you somewhere that doesn't exist. You'll never exit _between_ then.

"There are exceptions--if the dragon knows his or her rider is drunk, or sick, or otherwise out of his head, he'll use his own memories of the place, or he will take the rider to a different place, such as his home Weyr, that he knows _very _well. But when teaching a pair to go _between_, you don't want to rely on those exceptions. Particularly since the exceptions tend to occur with bronzes and browns. It's much rarer for a blue or green to have the foresight--or the courage--to contradict their rider."

"So...would you say it's not that providing an image to go _between_ with is difficult, but that if you screw it up even just once, the consequences are dire?"

F'lon nodded.

"I see," Robinton said. Then he tried to think very, very softly, in case Simanith was listening in--because he liked the great bronze very well, and didn't mean to insult him or hurt his feelings. But...Robinton had pretty much mastered providing a usable image, and he wasn't even a dragonrider. Lord Jaxom and Ruth had even seemed surprised that he'd caught on so quickly. Taking F'lon's words into account as well...it wasn't that the _act_ was difficult, but that messing it up _one time_ was deadly. And, he'd done short _between_-whens several times now, with Ruth, using no discernable difference in technique on _Robinton's_ end that Robinton could see.

Which meant it was an issue with the dragon. After all, if F'lon was giving Simanith bad coordinates, they'd be dead...right?

"Do you want to give it a try?" Robinton offered.

"Go _between_ whens? We just tried that, an hour ago. We followed your instructions...which were just like the Weyrwoman's."

"...perhaps Simanith can try taking the coordinates from my head?" Robinton offered, hesitantly.

"What are you on to?" F'lon asked, realizing Robinton wouldn't ask such a thing if he hadn't thought of something.

"Well, you never went _bewteen_ times before this fiasco, correct?"

"No, of course not. Didn't know it was possible."

"So you and Simanith were trained assuming if something went wrong _between_, you'd...come back to a known place, in the present. Right?"

"Yeeess..." F'lon said slowly.

"What if going _between_ times feels...wrong, or bad to Simanith, so he's correcting your coordinates mid-_between_, and because you were never trained as a weyrling to go _between_ times you keep doing an ordinary _between­­_-places jump because he's trying to save you from getting stuck in _between_?"

"But he knows we're trying to go _between_ whens," F'lon said.

"Knowing and making use of that knowledge is two separate things," Robinton pointed out. "I'd assume in _between_ you only have a split second to do whatever needs to be done to get you out of _between_...wouldn't you err on the side of caution if you were him? The known, verses the unknown?"

"So what are you proposing?"

"Do you think this is what's happening?" Robinton asked. He wanted some more input than what F'lon had just given him. He didn't want to repeat the lightning incident, after all.

"Simanith isn't sure about it either way," F'lon said. "He said he doesn't really think too hard about going _between_...he just _does_ it. So I suppose you might be right...what do you want us to do?"

"Just take the image from my mind," Robinton said. "So you're sort of coming at it fresh."

"All right," F'lon said, and he planted a hand on the dirt to help himself up. "Let's give it one more try."

#

An hour and a half later, Robinton had the...unique...experience of wanting to cheer and simultaneously vomit up his pancreas as he and F'lon furtively peered over the ridge and down at the little clearing where, as he watched, a tiny figure that was himself and a tiny figure that was F'lon climbed on a not-so-tiny-but-still-smaller Simanith and launched themselves into the air. They vanished _between_ a few wingbeats later.

Next to him, F'lon trembled and wiped at the sweat that was pouring down his face. "There they go," he said.

"There _we_ go," Robinton said, feeling the vertigo that had been playing havoc with his body start to ease, as if an invisible giant was starting to let go of--"Bloody son-of-a--" The ground dipped, and Robinton flailed around wildly so that he wouldn't fall to his death--

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, easy there," F'lon grabbed at his shirt. "We're not going anywhere. The ground is solid."

Robinton clutched at the ground, which really wasn't moving after all, even if his body had insisted it _had_ been, and violently, just a moment before. Spiky vegetation dug into his hands. "I want to vomit," he moaned, eyeing F'lon sorrowfully with one eye.

F'lon reached over and turned Robinton's head away from him. "Go ahead. Just do it that way so it doesn't hit me." His hands still trembled with the effects of having gotten too close to himself. He didn't seem nauseated, though.

Robinton didn't vomit, but only because he clenched his teeth so tightly they ground with an audible sound.

For a while, both of them lay there, waiting for the sickly sensations to ease. Both men had been aware that this would happen if they succeeded and got too close to themselves, but being told about it was very different from experiencing it. Gradually, however, the sickly pallor that lay over them faded, and they started to smile.

"Blast it, you were _right_," F'lon told him, a broad grin appearing on his face. He jostled Robinton's arm. "We could--"

"Let's take it slow," Robinton said, cautioning. "We only did it for a minute. There's a big difference between sixty seconds and a full fifty-odd turns."

"True," F'lon said. "Although we did it quick enough the first time, and didn't even notice until we ran into people."

"And, we have to say goodbye," Robinton said. "They've been very kind to us..."

"Yes," F'lon said, his grin fading. "Well, lets go get supper then..."

Robinton moved his tongue around his mouth and swallowed a few times, but the nausea seemed to have faded as quickly as it had come upon him. "Good idea. Masterharper Sebell and Master Menolly aren't here this evening, though..."

"Well, I'm sure we could stop by and--"

"Nor is _Lord Jaxom_, and we owe a debt to him too," Robinton whispered in F'lon's ear, even though it was unlikely anyone could hear them talking. The Lord dragonrider and his white dragon couldn't exactly pop into Benden Weyr to wave them goodbye, given how Menolly had gotten him to teach Robinton on the sly.

"Oh."

"Yes. Let me take one last 'lesson' with him and Ruth, tomorrow so I can convey our proper thanks. Then we can let everyone else know we've figured it out. It's not like another day will matter, not when going _between_ times. So eat first, rest up, I'll convey our goodbyes to Ruth and his rider, and we tell the rest of them after that."

"Right. Good plan."

* * *

**Author's Notes: **I am so glad to be at this point. From here on out--many, many fun things! Whoo hoo! The pace should pick up a lot. It's gonna be a hell of a ride. :D

As always, I really appreciate reviews, even if it's only "I like it". Writing is very much done in a vacuum, and reviews are the only way I have to judge if I'm doing things right or wrong.

I do have other fics--Pern fics, as well as Talent fics. (If you've not read the Rowan...what's wrong with you? Shoo! Go read!) You can get to them from my profile.


	17. Chapter 17

**Part Two**

**Chapter Seventeen**

Robinton vacillated between exuberance and a strange melancholy the next morning as he ate breakfast, and later as he rode a runner out of Benden Weyr to "stretch his legs and build up his endurance" as he had been claiming the past two sevendays to hide his meetings with Lord Jaxom of Ruatha. Robinton felt exuberance because there was a part of him that was smugly satisfied at having solved a problem that had stumped a Weyrleader, a Weyrwoman, F'lon, and three others...and melancholy, because now that the burden of figuring out how to get back home was off of his back he wouldn't get a chance to see exactly what his beautiful world had become.

It had changed--new clothing, new ways of speech, new settlements such as "Landing" and "Southern" and "Cove". New music. _Thread_. People (other than his own family) actually giving a hoot about the dragonriders (because _thread_ was a very real threat now...ironic how things worked like that, yes?) Going _between_ times. He wanted to run around like a child in the kitchens when sweetbreads were being made...sampling a little bit of everything, stuffing himself full with new experiences. It was _exciting_...but he had to go back to his own _when_, to wait and live for _decades_ while this time came about naturally.

He felt as if he had a un-looked for and surprising (but enthusiastically appreciated) prize in his hands, and someone was about to tear it away from him, jeering, "Just kidding! Hahahaha!". He wanted to stamp his feet and wail, "Nooooo!" like a mere infant of three turns. How would he ever get the chance to experience anything as profoundly _fascinating_ as this again?

Of course, he was no infant. He was a Journeyman of the Harper Hall. And it was his duty to go back to his own time, to make sure a past that had already happened wasn't upset. He was to become an Important Man in the History of Pern, after all. There were Things he had to do.

He snorted to himself at the whimsy of his thoughts. His mount snorted back at him, and he patted the creature on the neck.

Robinton wondered if all of this meant life was fated. You were born, went through a series of pre-defined accomplishments and failures, and you died.

_That_ was depressing. Was there no room for individual choice? Did a man born "bad" remain so? Was a man born "good" infallible? If he took a stance, championed a cause, did it have any effect? Did it really matter?

A sound of hoofbeats and the jingling of harness behind him made him twist to look over his shoulder. Two men, trotting down the road, at a steady ground-eating pace that wasn't slow, but that also wouldn't tire their beasts unnecessarily. So, obviously travel-by-dragon was still reserved only for special cases. Given how much of it he'd experienced lately, he'd sort of assumed that perhaps _everyone_ flew. An unrealistic thought, of course, but he was in the _future_. For all he knew, the long-empty Weyrs were now populated and dragons were as numerous as--

They hit him from behind in a coordinated attack, proving to Robinton that his warm, fuzzy feelings about his world's future were incredibly naive. Robinton went flying over his runner's shoulder, and landed on his left arm, which made him scream involuntarily in pain and shock. Still, he tried to roll with the fall--which didn't help--and tried to get away from the hooves that were far too close to his vulnerable body, as he drew his belt knife with his right hand.

He wasn't fast enough. They were off of their runnerbeasts and surrounding him before he could orient himself and power past the pain in his left arm and the spinning in his head. One of them slammed a knee into his back, forcing him to fall face down and trap his knife-bearing hand underneath him--only luck keeping the blade flat and not lodged into his own guts--while the other knotted a vicious hand in his thick chestnut hair, jerking his head back at an awkward, painful angle.

Then a wet, dun handkerchief was placed over his nose and mouth. A sweet, sharp herby scent filled his nostrils, and he sneezed violently, twice. They clamped onto his nose and face, not allowing him to jerk free by sneezing, and a buzzing feeling crawled through his sinuses and ears.

A few infinite-long moments later an intense euphoria made his perception of everything soften and glow. He had the strong desire to giggle and bask in the afterglow as his muscles went limp. Then he lost consciousness.

#

A polite cough at the doorway of her workroom made Master Menolly look up. When she saw who was standing there, she smiled, and put her pencil down. "Jaxom!"

"Hello, Menolly," he said, and let himself into the room. He closed the door behind him. "Did our plans change?"

Menolly's smile faded, and she thought to herself for a second. "If you mean the plans with Journeyman M--"

"Robinton," Jaxom corrected before she could even finish.

She bit her lip. "I'm sorry," she said. "Plausible deniability both ways, or so we were hoping. There's already too many people involved in this, and if word gets out, it's going to look like we're all up to something, when it's really more of a young-dragonrider-in-his-cups mistake."

Jaxom nodded, looking oddly serious. "So I was meant to meet...Robinton...today?"

"Yeeeess," she said slowly, glancing at her closed door in question.

"He didn't arrive. We figured it'd be just as quick for Ruth and I to come here as it would be to go to Benden Weyr, and less conspicuous if our fears are unfounded--"

Menolly felt panic constrict her heart, echoed by the sudden concerned sounds from the four firelizards who were in the room with her, and she sprang into action, calling Beauty to her, while finding a scrap of paper on which to write a note. After a quick moment of thought, she addressed it to F'lon; perhaps the young dragonrider had dragged Robinton off somewhere. He was spontaneous in a way that reminded her far more of F'lessan than either F'lar or F'nor, and Robinton often seemed dragged along in his wake, although amiable enough to go with it and provide his own commentary on things. _Please, please, please let it just be young men acting like inconsiderate twits..._"Beauty? Take this to F'lon. Simanith's rider, remember?"

Beauty did, and with the note in the container tied to her leg, she flapped up into the air and vanished _between_.

"We'll find them," Jaxom said. "Where's Sebell?"

Menolly grabbed another piece of paper. "Coming back," she said, scribbling something and calling Diver over to her.

"Do you need me to--"

"Would you?" she asked before he could even finish.

"We'd be happy to," Jaxom said, as Diver vanished _between_, on his way to Sebell and Kimi.

"Thank you."

"It's...very odd to meet him as a young man," Jaxom said after a moment.

Menolly suddenly smiled, despite her worry. "Isn't it?" But her smile vanished quickly again. "How long did it take you to figure out--?"

Jaxom suddenly looked abashed. "It was Ruth, actually. He kept referring to him as _the Harper_. I wasn't quick on the uptake; he had to repeat 'The. _The_. _THE!'_ and practically slap me in the head with a wing before I got the idea and took a hard look at your Journeyman's face. Youth makes the Harper look completely different."

"Oh, not you too!"

"What?" Jaxom asked, bewildered.

"Sebell's of the opinion that he looks ugly now but becomes more comely as he ages."

"...I wouldn't disagree with that," Jaxom said carefully.

Anything Menolly might have said in jest or mock-anger was cut short by Beauty re-appearing. Menolly quickly retrieved the note--the same scrap of paper, blotched with not-yet-dry ink on the reverse side--and felt her fears congeal. "F'lon says Robinton was looking to speak to _you_ specifically today; neither he nor Simanith know where Robinton is, but they're going to--"

Kimi appeared, with Diver behind her.

"--look." Menolly retrieved the note from Sebell. "Sebell's at Boll--"

"On my way," Jaxom said, and opened the door to let himself out into the hall.

She watched him go.

They were already looking for him. Menolly placed her hands over her face briefly and tried to comfort herself with that, but remembered the time from several turns before, when Robinton had been kidnapped. They had done it _again_. Blast them. Stupid, greedy, ignorant...And she wasn't sure if it was good or not that _this_ Robinton was younger...perhaps he'd be more resilient to whatever they had planned for him...or perhaps they'd decide a young man who shouldn't even be in this _when_ could be hurt or even murdered without as much outcry as the martyring of an old man would have caused.

_Enough, time to fret later, once he's safe and sound_. Menolly got to her feet.

#

"Piemur!"

Piemur looked up from the cogs, sprigots, and sprockets that were scattered all over the table before him. He was, in theory, supposed to be the liaison between his spouse Master Smith Jancis and the Harper Hall's Master Instrument Maker Jerint. He was _supposed _to be the one trying to explain how these electronics and technology worked and how they could be used to make new instruments and new sounds, but the two had glommed onto each other so quickly he would have been wildly jealous if Master Jerint had been a younger man.

...All right, he was jealous irregardless. If they cut him open right now, the Healers would be fascinated by the emerald green hue of his heart. So he looked over at Menolly hopefully when she called him; at this point a diversion would keep him from sticking his foot in his mouth by saying something ridiculous, and to a senior Harper, no less.

But his hope was quickly snuffed though at the sight of Beauty's eyes wheeling red; while Menolly had learned something about schooling her expressions in the turns she had been a Harper, it was harder for her to keep her firelizards from noticing her moods. This was a diversion, perhaps, but probably not of the good sort.

Piemur gave a sideways glance at his spouse and Master Jerint, but they were in deep discussion, heads bent over the various bits and bobs Jancis had pulled out of her pouch, so he quickly rose at Menolly's crooked finger, and followed her out.

"What's gone South?" he asked once they were in the hallway. It was a clever little phrase, to him at least--Southern had been the font of so many changes, both good and bad, that the phrase was apt and well-suited to most any new or strange upheaval. He'd already gotten half the Apprentices and Journeymen using it, much to his glee.

"Not here," Menolly said.

So they walked in silence up to Masterharper Sebell's office, which had, once upon a time, been Master Robinton's.

Once they were inside, with the door closed, she was apologetic. "I'm sorry, but don't get angry at me...or us," she began. Beauty's eyes were still tinged with scarlet.

"You _have_ to know that sort of opening just primes the fuse," Piemur said, pulling out another apt phrase--borrowed from the miners this time. Cross-Crafting had certainly borne fruit for his vocabulary. Or perhaps he was turning into as much of a wordsmith as their late Master.

Haha. Never.

"Ack, you're right," and she grimaced. "I'm not thinking. Still--promise not to yell?" and she gave him a brief, hopeful grin.

Piemur rolled his eyes. "Fine."

"Long story short--a younger Robinton came forward to this _when_."

He stared at her, and saw she was dead serious. _Robinton_? Forward to this when? "--you didn't _tell_--" he began. Long story short indeed!

"Piemur!" and his name was part plea--he'd promised not to yell after all--and part command, as she did, after all, rank him.

His mind spun. "What...what...how 'younger' are we talking?" He imagined a Robinton from the very start of the Ninth Pass, jumping forward with, say, F'lar, or even Lessa, to put some devious plan into play that was only bearing fruit right now--

"Older than Jaxom, younger than me," Menolly said.

Well. That wasn't as...hm. "That's not as exciting as I'd imagined it," Piemur said. "Even Master Robinton didn't spin out plans spanning _that_ many turns...he was a great man, but not a...not a...you mean he's here as a...a _youth_?"

Menolly nodded. "He was close friends with Weyrleader F'lar's sire, F'lon...and they managed to make a jump forward while thoroughly _drunk_."

Piemur's eyebrows hit his hairline. "And _he_ chided _me_ for the shenanigans--"

Menolly followed his train of thought. "Sebell and I were perplexed he'd never mentioned it either; we think that perhaps something odd is afoot. But anyway, again making along story short...we've been working for several sevendays now, trying to get them back to their proper _when_. Look at _your_ first thought--that this was part of some sort of complex plan by Master Robinton. It's really _not_, but with Benden involved, and us, it looks that way to anyone on the outside, and it's the sort of situation where we could explain and present the cold, hard facts until we're blue in the face, and nobody will believe us. We tried to keep mum on it, but someone got wind of things; Robinton was supposed to...ah, meet someone the Weyrleaders are not aware is involved. Lord Jaxom, actually. Jaxom just arrived to tell us Robinton didn't make it to their meeting spot, and via firelizard note F'lon confirmed that Robinton hadn't made other plans. Jaxom and Ruth have gone to Boll to bring Sebell back. F'lon and Simanith are presumably already searching for Robinton; we'll make the Weyrleaders aware of things shortly, assuming that nothing more innocuous has happened. Perhaps his runner took a fall." Her expression made clear that she didn't really believe her hopeful words.

Just listening to Menolly explain things was enough to make Piemur's heart hit his throat, sink back to his stomach, and his mind whirl. "Master Robinton has been in this _when_ for several _sevendays_ and I didn't _know_? And you told _Jaxom_ before--"

"We were initially trying to severely limit his exposure to this _when_," Menolly said. "The only reason _I_ know is because I'm the one he ran into first when he was in the Hall--and I almost didn't recognize him! Jaxom only got involved because of his...and Ruth's...ah, talents."

"But--but--"

"Piemur! Enough."

He shut his mouth, and thought. "You want me to go searching for him."

"If it comes to that, yes."

There was a sound from the other side of the closed door, and both Harpers stopped speaking. Then the door opened, and Sebell and Jaxom entered.

"I was just bringing Piemur up to speed with the current events," Menolly told them as a hello.

Piemur snorted. "She's turned what I think is a hundred-page-long manuscript into a haiku. _You_," and he pointed an accusing finger at Jaxom, "Knew before _I_ did."

Jaxom looked slightly embarrassed while he closed the door behind them, and Sebell spoke. "No slight was intended, my friend. We hustled him out of the Hall the moment he set foot in it; aside from us four, the only people who know are the Benden Weyrleaders, F'lon, Brekke, and Manora. We were hoping if anyone found out, the focus would be on F'lon--he _is_ a dragonrider, and the man who raised F'lar. Robinton just happened to be along for the ride. Literally."

"Someone else at the Weyr that we're not aware of probably knows too," Menolly said. "Has anyone talked to that Tailor?" she asked suddenly.

"The one that made the clothes? He shouldn't be old enough--"

"Robinton mistakenly gave his name as Petiron to him."

Sebell whistled.

"...that's an amateur mistake," Piemur said, confused.

"Yes, and he knew it. He confessed the next time he saw me," Menolly said. "In his defense, he was in a lot of pain from being struck by lightning."

"_What_?" Piemur said. Luckily, he saw this tidbit of information surprised Jaxom too, and didn't feel quite as left out.

Menolly waved it away. "I told Piemur because we're going to have to do a search carefully; we could provide a confirmation of his identity if we turn the entire Hall and the entire Weyr out searching. That could turn out bad for him, if he has indeed been taken by someone, and didn't, oh, find a wineskin somewhere and fall asleep underneath a tree."

"Exactly my thoughts," Sebell said. "Jaxom, did you do any searching, or is F'lon and Simanith the only ones doing so right now?"

"Ruth and I did a quick look around for anything obviously out of place, but since we weren't sure if plans had changed, we decided to come here first."

"I see," Sebell said. "Can I beg transport of you again? I'll need to notify the Weyrleaders at Benden--"

"Of course," Jaxom said.

"Piemur, you come with us. Menolly, can you start your fair searching, and send a note to F'lon and Simanith? Actually, Jaxom, could you drop Menolly where you usually meet Robinton, and then Menolly, you contact F'lon and start the search with him--"

"Yes," Menolly said.

"Let me get a few things," Piemur said, while rising and thinking of the Tailor that they had mentioned briefly. He'd probably be on snoop duty--easier now that Mirriam was no longer at Benden--and if so he wanted to be prepared. And talk to the Tailor.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I was a bit surprised that so many of you felt that Jaxom would know him on sight. I don't know about you, perhaps I'm just bad with faces, but if you have two photographs...one of a young man in the prime of his life...and one of a truly old man, between the facial changes, and the hair color and styles and everything it's hard to tell. At least for me. I recently got in contact with childhood friends on facebook, and some of them had wedding photos up. I had a gander at them, and obviously got to see their parents in them, for the first time in a very long time. The only reason I knew that the parents were the parents were because the wedding photo layout gave it away, and once I knew I must be looking at the parents, could see the similarities in my memory. But the people I remember in my mind are 30-somethings...not the 50-somethings they are now. These are adults who I used to see on a day to day basis. Given that Jaxom only knew him as an old man, and wasn't quite as close as Menolly and Sebell were to him, I could see him missing it. (Now, Lytol would be another matter...) I don't see Robinton's friendship with F'lon being common knowledge either.

But, of course, since I have to have a big paragraph explaining it, the above obviously didn't work in-text...my mind must work differently than yours. Oh well. I wrote an explanation in. Kinda.

#

Fair warning...going forward, the story will be getting more dark. Thus far it's been rather light and comic. But yes, much darker going forward.

#

Piemur aggressively wanted to be included. He wasn't included before, and I think he got upset at it. He's fun to write though, so I'm ok with including him, even if he wasn't in the plans before.

#

I'm sorry that Jaxom's characterization is off...I know it is, I don't have a handle on him at all. In lieu of having a handle, I decided to portray him as being somewhat capable and confident. Someday I'll re-read TWD and ATWoP and fix him.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter Eighteen**

"His name was Camolien, right?" Piemur asked discreetly in Menolly's ear, as dusk fell outside the windows of Benden Weyr.

It was perhaps a bad time for him to ask that; she was stuffing a meatroll into her mouth, and Auntie Two, the only firelizard not still out doing searches for Robinton, kept trying to snatch at it. Piemur had thought _all_ of Menolly's firelizards were better than this, but perhaps the silly-headed green thought her promotion to Menolly's shoulder was permanent, or at least came with perks.

Menolly waved a hand at Auntie Two's head, and mumbled something fuddled by the food in her mouth. Then she chewed rapidly, swallowed, and spoke again. "Yes."

"He's gone. Scarpered five days ago, I'm told."

"Blast," Menolly swore. "Legitimate? Or did he just pack up and run?"

"Hard to tell; I'm told he has a one-track mind. Some folks are of the opinion that if a hint of a relocation came down from his Craftmaster, he'd be out of here like he could go _between_ himself. Really trying to rank-climb; he sounds like a right diva, as much as any of our Singers and Composers are. Had a row of some sort a few times with a few of the junior queenriders about fashion. He doesn't mean it _personally_ against people, but he can be abrupt they say. Nobody's really surprised he's gone."

"So the question is," Menolly said, "Do we try to sweet-talk the Mastertailor--or somebody in the know about their schedules--to see if it's legit or not?"

"Are we sure he was involved?" Piemur asked.

"No," Menolly said. "But we're not sure he's _not_. Sebell?" and she raised her voice to carry across the room.

Sebell, who was speaking to F'nor with a very serious set to his body--F'lar, Lessa, and F'lon were all still out searching--turned and looked over his shoulder.

Menolly crooked a finger. She seemed exhausted; she and F'lon had scoured the area for hours and hours. They had found nothing except a few scuffmarks on the ground at various points, but neither she nor Piemur could say with certainty that any particular scuffmark was due to Robinton being attacked. They hadn't found the runner either. Whoever had done it had covered themselves well.

Sebell excused himself and came over. F'nor watched from afar, his arms folded across his chest. "Did you find anything?" Sebell asked them.

"The Tailor left about five days ago," Menolly said.

"You think he's involved?" Sebell asked.

"I know he has a detail that doesn't make sense if you think about it, and he may have thought about it. Even if he's not involved directly, he may have let something slip to the wrong person. How feasible would it be for us to talk with the Mastertailor to figure out if this Journeyman was recalled?"

"If I ask about this man, Master Zurg will want to know why. It's not often that our Hall interferes with other Halls."

"We're looking for more costumers?" Menolly suggested around another mouthful of food. She waved Auntie Two away again from the food in her hand. "Stop, you."

"If he is involved, the first mention of us will have him running again. That is, assuming his Hall knows where he is in the first place," Piemur pointed out.

"We could see if the Hall has any old samples of his work, and ask them not to approach him just yet because we don't want to get his hopes up if we don't like his style," Menolly said. "Being stationed at the Harper Hall costuming is considered a pretty cushy posting for those that want to get really wild with their designs. We can work in a question of where he is when we request the samples, so we know where to send the Harper if it turns out we do like what he has."

"Where did we hear about him?" Sebell asked.

"We're Harpers," Menolly said with a sudden smile. It vanished as quickly as it bloomed, however. "You said he got into fights with queenriders over fashion?" she asked Piemur.

"Yes. He found them too conservative."

"Well there we go. If he finds _dragonriders_ to be too conservative--particularly Benden ones--we want to know if he can walk the walk he's talking about. Easy as that. We like flamboyant." She looked at Piemur.

"What?" he asked. "Wait--no. No. I spent _Turns_ wandering around Southern by myself. I know _nothing_ about fashion--I like things functional, not...not..."

Both Master Harpers stared at him.

"Bloody--I dressed up as _Lessa_ as a boy. I wore _dresses_. And--and--stuffed brassieres!" He gestured vaguely around his chest. "I don't want to get involved with that...haberdash again!"

"Menolly's too nice, and I'm too busy," Sebell said.

"What?" Menolly said. "Too nice? I stand up for myself...or did you forget the first few days I was in the Hall?" she asked, reminding them exactly who had punched one of Groghe's fosterlings.

"I didn't say you didn't stand up for yourself, I said you were too nice. Remember that _thing_ you wore--that orangey--"

"I didn't want to hurt--" and she halted, hearing the words coming out of her own mouth. "I see. Point taken. F'nor?"

F'nor, who had been watching the Harpers consult with one another, came over. "Yes?"

"Would you and Canth mind taking Piemur here to visit Master Zurg?"

"Master Zurg?" F'nor asked with surprise.

"There was a Tailor here...Camolien...who made clothes for Robinton and F'lon. He left a few days ago--we want to verify he was actually posted elsewhere."

"Ah," F'nor said. "Have you mentioned this to Lessa? No? Any changes of Crafters assigned specifically to Benden and not just passing by would go through her as well..."

"We'll check with her once she returns," Sebell reassured the brownrider. "But we also want to see if his Hall knows where he is, since he has a five day lead on us if he was involved. He could be anywhere, particularly if he got a ride with a dragonrider."

"Of course, we'd be happy to assist."

Piemur gave his fellow crafters a half-hearted glare, and began to gather his things together. Weaving. Tailoring. He'd have to fake giving a hoot about it. Really, _Menolly_ knew more about fashion than he did, even if she did wear men's things half the time...she managed to make it look good, after all. He'd look a right fool if he tried to wear women's clothes. Again.

_The things I do for my Craft._

#

It was not exactly surprising when Menolly finally, finally fell into a guest bed at Benden Weyr that her dreams were restless and disturbed. She moved through dreamscapes that raked up old memories like silt in a riverbed, saw puppet shows play out on the stage of recollection that took truth and changed it like a Harper spinning a tale--sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

Eventually, a melody started to play over the recollection-visions of a sleeping dream orchestra warming up.

She was carried over Master Robinton's shoulder again, across the sands of the scorching Hatching Ground. Beauty dove at his white-haired head, upset at her mistresses' dismay, and too riled to realize her diving at the "intruder" was making Menolly even more upset.

The Hatching Grounds seemed to go on forever, and when she glanced around in her dream, they were in front of Cove Hold instead, striding through the white sands on the beach towards the wide-porched Hold. "You can put me down, Master," she told dream-Robinton, because if it was embarrassing for such a lofty personage to carry a girl of fifteen turns across the Weyr, it was outright improper for him to do the same with a woman of twenty-odd turns. And besides, she wasn't a small woman and his health had been suffering.

He stopped and put her down, but he did so carefully, so her feet were standing on the toes of his shoes. She realized her feet were bare, and he was trying to protect her from the heat of the sand, but at the same time she knew this was a dream, and there was a part of her that liked standing so close to him, even if only in a dream, which was probably why she wasn't wearing shoes. She made a sound at herself and her unconscious mind for making her run around shoeless, playing the helpless child to Robinton's Masterharper, and because the dream was becoming more lucid as moments went on, she decided to look up into Robinton's face and ask him a question.

"Where are you?"

His expression, benignly smiling before, became concerned. "You weren't there when Meron died, were you?"

Menolly didn't see how that was relevant to her worries, but when she tried to turn the dream again she found that the lucidity had retreated, and instead she was answering him as if the question had been serious and the dream world made perfect sense. "Nor were you, but Sebell was with you when Meron chose his successor."

"If I ever become addled, Menolly...old and addled, and in possession of some secret, some bit of information I should have told people long ago, and the only way to get out of me was to pour some vile concoction down my throat that would make me sane and aware, able to speak, but in horrible pain, would you do it?"

"That's vile," she said. Why had her dream taken such a morbid turn?

"Let's turn it around," he said. "Let's say some horrible man--old, grouchy, foul-smelling, snaggle-toothed, meaner than a starving, beaten wher and dying of some horrid consumptive disease...let's say he had a secret, something entrusted to him that would change the fate of hundreds of people. Would you withhold felis and numbweed from him, until the pain of his sickness was so great he finally gave you what you wanted? For the _good of Pern_, of course?"

"Is that what you did?" she asked. "To Meron?" She had never asked--she hadn't realized Robinton may have used...harsher methods than were typically his wont. She'd been more concerned with Piemur at the time, who had gone missing.

There was pain in dream-Robinton's eyes. " If I ever become addled, Menolly...old and addled, and in possession of some secret--" he repeated.

"This dream is strange," she whispered. She hadn't meant to say it, but it had slipped out between the layers of dream and dream-awareness.

"Dream?" he asked, caught off guard.

"No, I couldn't do it," she said. "How could I? There's no certainties in life like that, secrets that you absolutely _know_ the outcome of. That's not _real_. Putting a friend in pain like that is not a price I'd pay for a 'maybe'. You don't _do_ that to people you love."

He looked down at her, for a long while, as waves licked up the sands as the tide began to come in. "Yes, I know," he said finally. His deep baritone was gentle. "You're a good person, my dear. I am not." He laughed, a short, humorless laugh, quite unlike him. "But I am a very good actor."

She stared up at him.

"I'm sorry," Robinton added, as if it had just occurred to him to apologize. He grasped her by the shoulders and squeezed them, then put his hands on either side of her face and leaned down to kiss her forehead, and on each eyelid. "I'm very sorry, my dear," he said, resting his forehead against hers.

#

Menolly exploded out of her bed, only half-awake, completely terrified out of her mind, with firelizards burrowing into her hair, up her shift, digging blood-drawing claws into her calves, strangling her waist, neck, wrists with choke-tight tails, ripping trails down her back.

They were all screaming, and she got a wingtip in her eyes...thrice...as they clung to her like a second skin. She fell on the floor hard, unable to keep from falling on her friends. They squirmed and shivered and keened under her.

Then she wept, and curled up in a fetal ball, encased in firelizards, as a soul-slaughtering pain ripped her innards to shreds. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so, _so_, _so_, sorry," she said, her voice coming out in uneven sobs. She didn't know what she was sorry for, but she felt like ripping her heart out and offering it up for tribute, or as absolution for some hideous crime.

Frantic, hard boots slapped down the hall towards her, carrying another soprano shriek closer, and the door to her guestroom at Benden Weyr was jerked open.

The firelizards went nuts again as the door bounced off the wall, flapping and clawing and screaming. She clapped a hand over the ear that wasn't against the stone floor, while her body continued to be racked by sourceless sobs. Sharp pains peppered her body, where her firelizards wounded her in their fear, and she could feel drops of liquid everywhere, sliding down her skin.

"Menolly!" the man in the doorway said. He tried to reach her.

Her firelizards screamed profanities at him, dredging dream-silt up in her mind and throwing them at him, and they brandished fangs and wings. They did not let him through. They were afraid. They were afraid _he_ was going to come for them. He could chase them _between_ with his pain and fury, to die, cold and alone. They were terrified. They wanted comfort, but Menolly was terrified too, and comfortless, so they screamed at the intruder, their high pitched voices keen enough to deafen.

"What is it? What's happening?" Lessa, demanding.

"I don't know, something's terrified all the firelizards."

"You're bleeding, Sebell," another voice said.

"She's buried under them; I don't think they'll let us close," Sebell said. "She's bleeding more than I am."

"...did they savage her?"

"Unintentionally, yes. There's blood there. Menolly? Can you hear us?"

"Yes," she whispered, trying to push back the dire sorrow that flowed through her. She wasn't loud enough to be heard over the din, though. Only the firelizards could hear her. So she spoke to them. "You're okay, you're okay, my darlings, my children," she whispered instead. Her throat felt thick and sore.

The firelizards quieted a bit, several of them turning away from the intruders to attend to her.

Feeling queasy, and disoriented, she sang a lullaby, faintly, more in mind than in voice, knowing they would hear it if it was sung out loud. _Shhh. Shhh._ Fatigue and terror weighed her features down, but she continued to sing softly to them, and reached out to stroke a bit of them, each one of them, from one to another, and back again, soothing. They quieted, in voice at least, even if they still moved around nervously.

Then she started to unwind tails from her wrists, and tails from her throat and waist. Her skin had red indentations from their choke-holds.

"Menolly?"

"Let me...let me get untangled here," Menolly said over her shoulder. She trembled, and so did her tone. She started to pick Uncle off of her.

He keened piteously.

"Shh, shh, you're fine," she told him, sending him her love. Then she rolled out of her fetal position, onto her back, and drew a leg up to her chest so she could remove Auntie One from her ankle. She put Auntie One on top of Uncle so they would cling to one another instead of to her.

Sebell, Lessa, F'lar, and F'lon watched from the doorway.

"Give me a minute here," she told them hoarsely.

"Do you need help?" Sebell asked. He was holding Kimi tight to his chest. She was trying to crawl down his shirt to be held against his warm chest in the way he used to hold her as a hatchling. To Menolly's sleep-disoriented mind, it almost looked as if were pregnant with some monster and it might come bursting out at any moment.

She shuddered, and made a motion at him to stand back. "That might scare them again," she said. _Or me._

Sebell, Lessa, and the others continued to stare from the doorway as she methodically removed the firelizards from her body, and grouped them up into pairs so that they could still have each other to grip in their fear. Eventually, there was only Beauty on her, and Beauty, like Kimi was had with Sebell, went down the front of her shift to curl around her waist like a bulky belt.

Menolly decided to let Beauty be, and took inventory. She was bleeding everywhere; legs, thighs, back, stomach, face, scalp. A million little scratches inflicted by accident in the firelizards' fear. Numbweed. Numbweed, and water and a soft cloth were what she wanted.

_If I ever become addled, Menolly...old and addled, and in possession of some secret..._

She always remembered dreams vividly if something woke her prematurely--like her firelizards. But it was creepy all the same--usually she dreamed of now-things, today and yesterday-things. It would make more sense to dream of young Robinton, the one without the weight of turns in his clear blue eyes. The one still little awkward in his long-limbed body, that didn't always control his mobile and expressive face. Not Robinton as she had known him. _I miss him. I even miss him when I'm dreaming unsettling things where he's being cryptic and strange._

Menolly was not the only one nursing firelizard-inflicted wounds, she found when she and Sebell were escorted to the Healer's part of the Weyr. There were many people there sporting small bites and gashes, and some sleepy-looking Healers attending them.

"He just went insane," one of them, a greenrider by his rank knot, said to Brekke as she applied numbweed to his bleeding shoulder in preparation to stitch it closed. "Maeth said he was terrified. He still is," then he trailed off as he caught sight of Menolly. "You know what? This is just a scratch. Go help her before she bleeds to death." And the greenrider seized the thread and needle the Healer was using on his shoulder, and went at the gash on his shoulder as if he'd stitched himself up before. As a dragonrider, he probably had.

Brekke, sporting a small mark on her earlobe, hurried over and before Menolly could become too embarrassed by all the firelizard owners blatantly staring at the state she was in, took her into a side room so she could be patched up in privacy. Although, considering Sebell, Lessa, F'lar, and F'lon all followed, it was hardly private.

That made Menolly giggle in a disoriented and overwhelmed sort of way, but the men turned their backs politely as she stripped off her shift and let Brekke--and Lessa, who surprisingly seemed inclined to assist Brekke in patching up Menolly--take care of her wounds.

Beauty hissed at Lessa from around Menolly's waist. Lessa ignored it. "What exactly happened there?" she asked, while washing Menolly's skin clear of blood as Brekke prepared numbweed and a needle. "Ramoth was awoken by the hullabaloo of the firelizards, but she has no idea what scared them."

"Are you alright?" Brekke asked in counter, in case Menolly needed sympathy more than she needed to be grilled by a weyrwoman over firelizard antics.

Menolly watched a needle slide in and out of her skin, painless due to the miracle of numbweed, and tried to sort through the emotional tumult that had jerked her out of her dream about Robinton.

She could still feel him resting his forehead against hers, see his wavy white hair swing forward to hide their faces. It made her blush, because although nothing improper had happened in the dream, she knew herself well enough that it easily could have gone that way...if he had stopped talking so bloody cryptically. And it was _odd_, because she had never actually dreamt that way while he was still alive...although she had known quite well she would have come to him if he'd crooked a finger in her direction.

The firelizards, on the other hand...fear. Rejection. Not the rejection like the one on the boat South, where she could usually convince herself that Robinton truly had had no idea what she had been on about, but rejection as if her best friends in all of Pern had led her to a cliff and pushed her, naked, off the edge. And laughed as she fell.

Where in the world had _that_ come from? She didn't _think_ it was her, although with ten firelizards she was sure it would be almost as easy for things to go out through them and affect the poor people who only had one or two as it was for something external--like F'nor's ill-fated jump to the Red Star--to come in and affect _her_ through the minds of ten firelizards.

But the dream had been...off-kilter, the way dreams usually were. Flavored by a strong desire to embrace her Master, and never let go. And the firelizards on the other hand were enraged...no, _fleeing_ from someone enraged. Fleeing from a friend who was not a friend, from someone who had been cornered, and would eat their fluttering hearts right out of their chests if it would save his own skin. That hadn't been present in her dream, at all.

_Rage? Robinton?_ He could be fierce when roused...but he usually went at things sideways, unless his particular opponent was one that would be scared into place by a display of rowdy male bellowing...which was fairly rare. Very few grown men responded well to being treated like children, so Robinton typically had avoided that technique unless he could crowd together a large enough group where they would be less inclined to take the chiding personally (since, after all, he was probably yelling at _someone else_). It was a rule of being a teacher...if you're going to bellow, bellow at the entire class. You'll put the student in the wrong in their place--and if _you_ don't their _peers_ will--and the rest will get a warning.

...if...if...if this angry, red-hot I'll-kill-you-all temper that her firelizards had been crazed by _was_ him...

But _firelizards_. The man was dotty over them. He treated them like children...even Zair at his quirkiest...flying anything remotely green or gold in high spring...had never provoked real anger. Grumbling, yes. Irritation, yes. But she couldn't see him, young or old, conjuring up that _rage_...making any creature, firelizard or human feel so _rejected_...

Because it had to be _true_ rage, you see. Not pretend rage. A firelizard would _feel_ that. They knew your heart. Many a time had Menolly put on a show good enough to fool a man or woman--only to be undermined by a firelizard with frantically whirling red-tinged eyes. When Sebell was going to put forward a suggestion he thought she would be wroth about, he watched Beauty's face, not hers. And more often than not, she watched Kimi when she thought he was stressed and putting a good front on it. If Piemur was proddy, so was his queen, bickering with Beauty even when Beauty kept trumping the younger queen and beating her around the head with her wings to prove who was superior time and time again.

"Menolly?" Brekke asked, as Menolly stared out into space.

"Some firelizard, somewhere, was in the presence of a man fantastically angry," Menolly said slowly.

"Male?" Sebell asked, over his shoulder.

"Men typically are," Menolly said with a quirk to her mouth he couldn't see.

"Any idea of who?" Lessa asked.

"Not with certainty," Menolly finally answered.

Sebell made a sound. "Who with uncertainty, then? I didn't get even that. Kimi tore up my arm, and I could tell she was angry and fearful--but I didn't feel what she felt, not like you did."

"I really don't know if it's related," Menolly said. "I really _don't know_. They woke me up mid-dream, and my mind was fuddled by that. One moment I'm in a surreal dreamscape, the next stumbling awake, surrounded by my entire fair of upset firelizards."

"What was the dream about?" Brekke asked.

"Robinton," Menolly said.

The room was quiet.

Menolly didn't elaborate. The dream had been rather private, after all, if only to her. She didn't want to trot that out to all and sundry. It was just a product of the typical girlchild crush --she'd certainly seen enough of it in other people to know what it was, even as she suffered from it.

They waited for her to speak.

She kept her mouth shut a while longer, but then realized the more she stayed silent, the more fantastical their imaginations would get. Why would she be reluctant to discuss a dream about her Master?

People. She rolled her eyes.

"I remembered the day I met him, when my feet were still healing and Beauty tried to attack him because I was embarrassed about being carried over _anyone's_ shoulder like a sack of grain. The sands of the hatching grounds morphed into the sands of Cove Hold as we walked, which is typical of dreams. The dream was partly lucid, so I asked him where he was. It's silly, I know, but sometimes your unconscious tells you things, which is why I asked. He didn't reply and started to fret over Meron." She spread her hands. "I see no connection between the dream and the firelizards."

Lessa frowned. "_Meron_?"

"Old history, I know," Menolly said. "Although speaking of that, it's a use-name younger Robinton had a hunch to use here until I dissuaded him from it." _That_ was probably the connection, she realized. The younger Robinton bringing up the name a couple of sevendays ago. She smiled. And the name alone would bring along its own boatload of memories for the dream to take and distort. "It's a combination of his mother's name Merelan, and his father's name Petiron."

"So you _don't_ think your dream had anything to do with the firelizards?" Sebell asked.

"Most people's dreams don't say much of anything at all," she pointed out. "And we have been searching for him, so he's on my mind. Had he actually been involved, I'd think _you_ at least, Sebell, would have gotten the sense too. So no. I don't think the two are connected."

Because if they were, she wasn't sure she wanted to contemplate what might have already happened to Robinton to cause an emotional reaction that rippled through the Benden firelizards like a tsunami.

* * *

**Author's Notes**: As always, many, many thanks for the reviews!

I don't know who the hell the rider of green Maeth is, but I like him. It's always the once-off characters that sneak up on you and ask to stay...

I think the dream sequence here is my favorite of all the scenes I've written for this fic. Dream sequences are very...odd to write. On one hand, I loathe them. I never, _ever_ intend to start out writing a dream sequence just because so many authors use them _badly_. And yet, the two times I've done them...once in this fic, and again in _Sackcloth and Ashes_ it's very...strange to take the skill I use to stitch the story out with, and use it...slightly tuned so it's off-key in a minor note--in a dream. I reach out and pluck strings that would never sound during the main storyline. It's weird. But fun. I don't know if I use dream sequences appropriately--I'm not sure *anyone* can which is why they get a bad rep--but I like this one, even if it ends up sucking. I mean...Menolly standing on the toes of Robinton's shoes like a little girl. Where else would I get to use that kind of whimsical scene?

Even if it ended up...freakin' creepy. Mwa ha ha ha.

Also, the idea of Menolly wrapped up in terrified multi-colored firelizards like she's wearing them as a dress is...interesting. I wish I could draw it, but I'm not skilled in that area. (Gogo fanart?)


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter Nineteen**

Robinton knew that he was ill. Sweat turned his light colored shirt dingy yellow. His stomach heaved even when there was nothing left to empty out of it. And despite humidity so thick it seemed as if clouds had descended to kiss the soil, he shivered with a bone-knocking cold.

They'd come upon him, him and Big Black--no, the runner hadn't been black. It had been brown. All the same, they'd ridden him down, knocked him off, and drugged him. Master Gennel needed to know about it, if they were hunting Harpers down and drugging them. The woodsie folks had always been wary of Harpers, and it was a serious problem if they were returning to the old ways of preying on men. Honest Craftsmen shouldn't have to be fearful of traveling alone. It was beyond disturbing that they'd defend their ignorance with violence, locking their children into a vicious cycle of mental poverty. It's like they _wanted_ Fax to come and rape their daughters and kill their husbands--

No, that wasn't right. This didn't make sense. He was delusional, walking in a dreamworld under the influence of whatever they'd put into his body days before and the sickness he'd picked up in this hyper-fertile thick-leafed land. He was lucky he could put one foot in front of the other...which he couldn't, as his twisted, aching ankle informed him.

He sat on a large twisted root heavily. The ground litter shifted under his pinching purloined boots, and grubs roiled, frantic to get out of the light of the sun.

Robinton's stomach roiled too at the sight of them, and he heaved saliva and yellow bile onto the jungle ground before him.

Blast. Any hunter worth their salt could see vomit and know it was left by a human. Fax's men...

No, no, _no_. Fax was dead. Long dead. If Robinton was being _hunted_ it would be...Oldtimers. Or Meron. Or Abominators.

...hadn't Meron died too? Or was he ahead of himself? It was like he was in a tunnel, looking both forward and back, and not knowing where he _belonged_.

Who was hunting him?

Perhaps if he thought _really, really_ loudly at Simanith. Was it _possible_ to think louder or softer, as if thinking was the same as speaking, or playing an instrument? Should he try? The bronze dragon was kind, and often spoke to him. Maybe he would hear him now...

Except that he couldn't, because F'lon was dead too, and Simanith, riderless, had launched himself _between_ to meet his rider wherever people went after they departed this mortal world. He even had a scar from it.

Everyone he'd known was dead. Yes, that was a depressing thought, and one that proved that he was ill and not thinking clearly. There was something wrong with his head.

Robinton shoved up his wet, reeking sleeve to finger the scar on his forearm he'd earned the day F'lon had died.

The scar wasn't there. But on the other side of his arm, a different scar meandered, slick and branching, twisted and forked, on and on like it was going to open up and devour him whole.

The people hunting him were going to devour him whole--they didn't want him to get back to Gennel and report. They didn't want him to say that dragonriders were involved.

The thought made him sick. He knew F'lon, he knew of--from afar at least, and by reputation, and by his Mother's kind words on them--F'lon's parents. To think that some man would lead himself and his dragon astray so grossly, when F'lon and his Weyr worked so _hard_ to prepare people...

Actually, hadn't it been Lessa? Lessa and F'lar? Who had saved the world those first fateful turns, regardless of everyone else's blind-headed efforts to destroy them all? He stared down at the mess of bile he'd left on the leaf litter, confused--and more than a little frightened.

There was nothing he could do about the vomit. Perhaps they wouldn't find it, not with vegetation so thick. Perhaps they wouldn't have the entire brigade of men he feared were after him after him...perhaps they'd think he was just an ordinary Harper--dangerous perhaps because he was a Harper, but no more.

If they were _wise_, they'd have an entire brigade after him. He could meet up with Nip, or Tuck, who were smarter and more cunning than ten ordinary men put together. Nip and Tuck could get him out of here, get him up before the Council, warning Lords and Mastercraftsmen that a dark time was coming.

Yes, he was delusional. There was no reason they'd listen to a Journeyman like him, no matter how he chose his words, no matter if he strode swiftly across the stage, his boot treads heavy with authority and his voice full of fire. But he recalled being listened to, once. More than once. He remembered whipping men into a frenzy, wielding words like sabers, and turning them loose, all in the name of Pern.

But now...he was lost in a hot, humid land of greenery.

When had that changed?

_You're an old man, Robie. Your mind has slipped. Why are you running around in the Southern jungle? You'll come down with firehead, if you haven't already. If you're going to haul your mangy carcass through the jungle, you need to do it properly, with Menolly or Piemur. Preferably Menolly--her tongue is sweeter than that sharp-tongued rascal's. But how to convince her?_

There was a rustle from overhead, and he mopped at his face with his sleeve and peered up at it. A bronze shape, clinging to a branch, and staring down at him, red eyes ablaze.

"There there," he soothed, his tone as reassuring as he could make it in his state. "I'm just passing by, no need to tell anybody...I won't hurt--"

The bronze firelizard screeched, like a piccolo being played by an enraged deaf boy, dove off the branch at him, and tried to take his eyes out with its claws.

Robinton ducked, throwing his arm up, and felt the claws slice through the thin cloth. He gritted his teeth in a pained snarl, but the firelizard vanished _between_, content with having bloodied him for his sins.

Pain greater than the physical pain of bleeding wounds swept through him, and he wept, wept because the little bronze was right, he was a monster, a beast, someone to be hunted down and broken. How _could_ he? Who was he to make these decisions? He was wrong, so _wrong_. Dying out here, unable to tell Gennel...Gennel?...yes, Gennel, the Masterharper...he wouldn't be able to warn his Master about Fax. He wouldn't be able to tell F'lon that...that...what was he supposed to tell F'lon? Or had it been F'nor he was supposed to tell? F'lar, F'lessan...their names were too bloody similar. Not like Crafter names. Sebell was different from Gennel was different from Robinton was different from Menolly...

Menolly, Menolly. She would be worried about him. But Menolly came after Gennel, so didn't he have a few decades' worth of Turns before then? He could get himself out of this before she became worried. He had time.

_Time_. His weeping trickled off as quickly as it began. There was something out of whack, but he couldn't see it for the trees. He had to get out of the trees. Somewhere flat, somewhere he could walk without twisting his other ankle.

Somewhere where they could find him.

#

There was a persistent, niggling thought nagging at Robinton as he made his way over a wide flat plain of featureless volcanic stone, telling him that _perhaps_ he should return to the mess of vines and wildlife that made up the jungle far behind him, perhaps he should _turn back_ before it was too late, but his ankle throbbed to let him know he wouldn't get any further if he had to struggle over fallen logs and around algae-filled gullies. This plain had its own disadvantages--the sun beating down, although it was almost below the treeline--the dark stone retaining heat as burning hot as any hatching ground, the lack of food and water...but it didn't hold tracks, and he knew if he could get as far as possible, put as much distance between him and _them_ he _might_ make it out alive.

Or, at least, meet his death at the slavering maws of wild whers and felines instead of at the hands of men. At least beasts were honest about their hungers. He had met the amber eyes of something peering out at him through the foliage, and he wasn't sure if were a figment of his fevered mind, or real.

He wanted to rest. He had stopped sweating hours ago, his legs and shanks trembled with exhaustion, and his walk forward was less a walk and more a drunken stumble, except he was parched, _parched_, without a single drop of wine in him, and if he stopped to sit he feared he wouldn't get up again.

So he stumbled forward, the toes of his too-tight boots knocking along scree and black dust, pebbles and tiny metallic bits that clinked.

The clinking was what caught his attention...it caught a snag of his mind, like a thread picked out of its weft by a sharp object. He paused, and bent down, his knees creaking like an old man's, to fumble at the bit of metal that had gone skidding away from his awkward, plodding steps.

It was a simple bit of metal; a round square frame, with a tongue cleverly bent around one edge. A buckle. Too small for a belt...probably a shoe buckle, or a harness buckle.

Well, if the flat, featureless stone plain was easier for him to traverse, it would surely be the same for a caravan of traders with runners. He let the bit of metal drop from his fingers to chime against the ground.

There seemed to be an outcropping of rock up ahead, but it was hard to see clearly; the setting sun's glare made his head ache, and between his fevered imaginings and the sun-illusions that had formed, he had seen and passed by several outcroppings that had vanished once he had drawn near to them.

Still, it gave him a goal to walk towards. He would make it to this outcropping. Then he'd try to find another landmark, and make his way to that.

Onward, onward.

There was a part of him that tried to catalogue details and make a song of it, but he found himself taking other composers' works and mixing them together in a mash, and he'd be hit by sudden anxiety because there was no way Menolly could have ever met Kasia yet, and _he_ had never met Kasia yet, although it seemed he had made a sonata, so when he did meet her he had a song for her, and when his sick idle mind tried to mix it up with one of Menolly's tunes...he didn't know what to do. It seemed _dishonorable_ to do that, and besides, one was an instrumental meant to convey things words could not express--the one time he had fallen into his father's habit of pretending there were concepts that words could never give voice to--and the other a highly singable ditty. They didn't work together.

He tried again with other tunes that did not work...a teaching ballad and an Ancient song that used sounds no Pernese ear had heard for thousands of turns, so strange that it seemed produced by a band of Harpers that hadn't met up with the main Hall for hundreds of turns. He found himself talking to an imaginary Gennel, trying to explain the concept of glass _lenses_ to make distant objects clearer, trying to explain how the message drums would fall into disuse, and when Zair returned he would prove it...

Zair. _Zair!_ Robinton halted, looking up, searching the burning-blue sky above him. He had forgotten Zair? Where? How? Had it been...had _Zair_ fled with the rest of them, convinced they had met a monster?

_Oh no, not Zair..._but he could not feel the familiar tickle in the back of his head, where he knew his beautiful little boy, his beautiful bronze was always listening to him. He was out here, in the scorching relentless sun, alone, tired, hurt, and sick.

The pain that gripped his heart stung his eyes, but he only had tears enough to make his lashes damp. He _missed_ Zair, missed his funny noises and the small velvety muzzle that would nuzzle him at the place at his jaw under his left ear, missed the tiny, perfect five-fingered paw using the edge of his ear or a fistful of his hair as a handhold.

So when a familiar bronze form zipped past him, his heart leapt into his throat.

But it wasn't Zair. It was...

There was a yell from behind him, female and urgent, and the clatter of something metallic as if an Apprentice had tipped over a box full of brass instrument fittings, or a thousand iron buckles had dropped to the ground.

He turned, and saw a woman sprinting across the volcanic plain towards him, dragging a bizarre metallic..._cape_...along with her.

And as if his gaze had a string attached to it, he looked above her head. Behind her, to the east, he saw that a stray storm cloud was sheeting silvery--

He was not so sick that his mind was completely unable to connect the random, scattered buckle he'd kicked in front of him before to this silvery rain.

_It was the only thing left of someone..._

Thread. That was _threadfall_, right there. It wasn't rain. It was _thread_. There were probably other metal bits on the ground scattered hapless along this volcanic plain, _he_ would leave other metal bits, when thread fell and ate away everything but his own belt buckle and the bits of metal the Healers put into that tooth of his...

Menolly tackled him like a man twice her size, pushing him down, _down_ on the burning-hot rock, pausing only to cup his head in her hand to protect it as she fell on top of them and dragged the heavy, rattling metal cape over them.

"What--" he tried to say, but she jabbed a hand and foot at the back of his knees so that he ended up in a fetal position, the volcanic stone burning his left side through his thin, worn clothing.

"Get in, get in, get your feet and arms in or you're going to lose them!" she yelled at him, her voice shrill. She was sitting astraddle his hip, shoving at his body like he was nothing more like a doll she could pose until she could get the metal blanket tucked around them and held down by his head and knees. An open leather pack flopped around them as she did this, then she slipped behind him and molded herself to his back. The metal blanket didn't really seem big enough to cover them both, and flashes of fresh air and light kept intruding where the blanket slipped to one side or another under its own weight. She jammed an arm under his ribs so she could reach around and hold one such spot in place, and she fumbled behind her so she could pull the other side down so her back wasn't exposed. "Don't move, don't move at all, do you hear me?" They were squished together as tightly as two twins in the womb.

"I--" he said, unable to form much of a coherent thought or word.

"Don't. Bloody. _Move_. No _matter_ what happens!"

_What could happen?_ a part of him asked irreverently.

Neither of them were prepared when something solid and heavy _slammed_ against their thin, metal protection and slithered off to the side.

They both flinched and screamed in terror. The blanket began to slither off of them, borne down by its own metallic weight.

"Hold it, _HOLD IT!_" she screamed in his ear.

He tried not to wet himself and obeyed, grabbing at the edge and pulling it down to the rock they lay on. His side felt like it was roasting meat and he despaired for their lives; they would be cooked to death, or devoured by thread. Both ways would be exquisitely painful.

And somehow, somehow it was _wrong_ that it was Menolly protecting him, sheltering him from behind like a mother with her son, like she were prepared to shield him with her own body if she had to. He feared she _would_, too if it came to that.

Another meaty, writhing _twack_, sliding grotesquely across their bodies, and they screamed again, both of them making involuntary whimpers of fear and trembling like saplings in the wind.

No, no, he was the old one, he was the one who had lived his life to its fullest. He no longer mattered, but she had turns and turns of life yet to live. She should not be protecting _him_, that was backwards. So he suddenly shifted around--

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" she roared at him, her stage-trained voice deafening in the close confines.

But it was too late, he was already turning over, and she had no choice but to turn over too and help him re-adjust as fast as possible, while they could see sick, pallid silver slugs writhing their death-dances on the barren rock around them, before gold, bronze, brown, green, and blue firelizards flamed them to ashes.

She punched him for his stupidity, hard enough to bruise, and fired a vicious stream of curses at him, the likes he had never heard from her before. But they got themselves safely tucked i--

_PAIN._ Burning, moving, _painpainpain_ across his calf, across _their_ claves, and then the cuffs of his pants were on fire, and he jerked his leg back under the metallic blanket, and hers too, and they both beat out the sulfurous flames with their hands before the smoke could choke them. And seeping wetness, _painpainpain_, wetness...blood.

He obeyed her after that, holding the blanket down as strands of thread bounced off of them, staying stock-still, weaving in and out of delirium. He was bigger than her, and positioned himself so he was covering as much of her body as he could with his own; if thread got through again, it would have to eat through _him_ first.

Which was proper.

Eventually, the sick contacts of thread hitting them through the metal scales began to fade, and then they stopped. Both of them were to terrified to move however, even with the stone baking their other sides to blisters, so they stayed there, huddled, panting in fear, and nursing their pains, until curious chirping followed by a great draconic roar sounded.

_Alive. We're alive_, Robinton thought in amazement. They'd lived through a threadfall in open air. _Menolly saved my life_. "Thank you," he said into her ear, his baritone voice hoarse and rough with emotion. "You saved my life. I love you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." He was _alive_. And rescued.

Then the voice of F'lon called out, filled with worry.

Relief swept through Robinton. And, his body still battered from sickness, hunger, thirst, and pain, Robinton promptly fainted.


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter Twenty**

Of all the people attending to his bedside, Robinton never would have expected his mother.

She was sitting in a chair, her hair pulled back into a loose tail with a wide blue ribbon, holding sheet music on her lap. From here, Robinton could see that it was written in Petiron's distinctive hand; from the way the abused hide was scraped and scraped again to leaf-thinness in spots, it was probably the original score, given into the safekeeping of his wife.

While Robinton had no doubt at all that his mother would have attended his bedside had it ever been necessary, it was surreal in the extreme to actually witness it. Why, she was so _young_ looking. Barely older than Menolly, although he knew it wasn't true, and she probably just looked that way due to Singer's cosmetics, as she was at least twice his Apprentice's age.

Well, actually, four times, since he was something like three times Menolly's age himself and his mother had a generation on him. But, physically, she seemed no more than forty tender turns.

Mother. She was _Lessa's_ age. But she was irrefutably and undeniably also his _mother_. He knew her face as well as he knew his own, even if he hadn't seen it for over fifty turns.

How...bizarre. Before his mother could catch sight of his open eyes, or notice that he had awoken in a lucid state of mind, he closed his eyes and kept his breathing even and quiet, so he could try to get a handle on this...this..._whatever_ it was, and come to terms with how he wanted to react.

He had expected...what, upon awakening? Well, not his mother at his bedside, no more than he would expect Master Gennel or Petiron. Then, if he wouldn't expect them, who _would_ he expect? Menolly. Always Menolly, of course, the dear girl was transparent in her affection. Occasionally too transparent. Sebell, too, although he had taken up Robinton's duties when it had come time for Robinton to lay them down himself, and so Sebell wasn't always available. Piemur, joking and knowing things no Journeyman Harper should know quite yet, but happy to share him with his Master if only so he could show them to _someone_. Silvina, giving him the care and affection she had always given him--and many other Harpers in the Hall. Oldive. D'ram and Lytol too, his boon companions after they'd all taken up at Cove Hold in their retirement.

The key difference between all of _them_ and his mother was one of generation. Barring Silvina, none of _them_ had ever known his mother, and the Silvina he was thinking of was the one with silver strands curling through dark hair that stubbornly refused to go entirely silver like his own had.

And..._how_ had he gotten here? Why was he in a sickbed?

Two events came to mind, as if they had happened yesterday. One was watching the AIVAIS shut itself off, behaving as honorably as any living being might. Stepping aside for the next generation, knowing that its lessons would have to be their guide from this point forward, that no tutor could prevent every mistake that had the potential to happen, and that trying only stunted the student's growth. Eventually, you had to turn them loose on the world, and let the world have its way with them.

The other most recent memory he had was a distorted, terrifying, and chaotic impression of being caught in threadfall in Southern with no shelter.

Robinton tried to make sense of that and, failing, thought back further. F'lon, and Simanith. At Benden...lessens with Ruth...meetings with the Weyrleaders...but _F'lon_ was there...in the _Ninth Pass_? When they were hardly more than _boys_...how did they get in the Ninth Pass...and no, that had never happened. _None_ of it--he would have _remembered_ hopping forward...hopping...if he had known such things his entire life, he would have acted differently in many situations!

And yet...

_Forward in time? We went forward?_ He opened his eyes before he remembered he was trying to fool his mother into thinking he was still asleep, and stared at his hand. Young. His skin was smooth and unwrinkled. Not a boy's hand, no, it was large with long, long fingers and rawboned and ugly like most men's hands were, scarred here and there with the blemishes most people accrued through life, but it wasn't made veiny by the thinning of skin to transparence, it wasn't wrinkled and freckled like he remembered it being, although it did bear evidence of recent hardship, and of course the Harper's calluses he had had since he first picked up an instrument.

His mother's cool hand fell on his forehead, brushing his hair back. "How are you feeling?" she asked, as he twitched in surprise at the touch.

Too late now to pretend to sleep; he'd given himself away by staring at his youthful paw. He looked into her blue eyes, drank in her face, and couldn't think of a single thing to say. _How was he feeling?_

He had no words for it. _Wouldn't some of those Lords and Masters have loved to hear me say that! Robinton, left speechless for once..._

There was a part of him that prodded--smile at her! Be charming, make jokes, make his Mother think that everything is fine and wonderful and all the good things that she hoped to hear in her deepest of hearts. But she wasn't some barely-met youthful matron Healer, to have her head turned by a Masterharper sweet-talking himself past the pain. If he settled _that_ old, familiar role over his shoulders like a cloak it would set off warning bells in her mind...that's not how the son she knew acted, and not just _that_, she'd _know_ he was playing a role too. Very few charming elderly Harpers could actually pull the wool over her eyes, even if it occasionally pleased her to let them think they could.

Unfortunately, he wasn't sure he remembered _how_ to be young again. Yes, he _remembered_ his antics with F'lon as if it were yesterday...and he realized with a shock of shame just how unprofessionally...or naively...he had purported himself...but when he rummaged around in his mind for the proper role to play _now_, he couldn't really find any that fit. Certainly, playing a brash young man was easy enough...he had a dozen stored away in his mind, each with their own stage-ready quirks, to woo or disgust his audience at will, but his mother would know he was role-playing a brash young man, and would wonder why.

Had he killed off his younger self, somehow?

He didn't feel dead. And yet...Robinton felt sorrow at these thoughts; he hadn't meant to end up in his youthful body, hadn't meant to push..._himself_...out of..._himself_...like a chick out of the nest. If he could have, he would have taken his old, failing body back and let this youthful, vibrant body go back to its rightful owner. But he didn't know why any of this had happened, and the more he thought about it, it seemed like a potentially monumental disaster had occurred, tangled up with _between_ times. _What have you done, Harper?_

The Benden Weyrleaders would...murder him for fumbling matters so thoroughly--_trust a Harper to get involved in things he didn't understand_.

Indeed. Indeed. He closed his eyes and took a steadying breath.

"Robinton?"

Robinton untangled his left hand from the furs. The outer side of it felt burnt, and it was covered with small abrasions of several sorts, and rope burns around the wrist. He hesitantly stretched it out towards her, then decided rather than adopting any particular role, to approach things with some measure of honesty. "May I embrace you?" he asked. He knew it was too formal, but better too formal than to just fall into her lap like a little boy overwhelmed by life. Particularly when he had been thinking about how old he was, just a few moments before, and how young she looked. _How supremely...odd_.

A line appeared between her brows, but even if his wording was formal, she couldn't refuse her own offspring the embrace he desired. So she moved and sat on the edge of his bed, and he painfully eased himself up so his back was against the wall, and rested his head on her shoulder.

She stroked his hair away from his face, and sang to him like he was a much younger boy, perhaps picking up the mingled uncertainty and fear that was hidden away in his heart. Mothers did tend to be sensitive to such things. It would have felt strange if she had only sung a song from his childhood, but she sung parts of the score before her--parts which sounded wrong to him until he realized this was probably a rough score, and would be changed several times before Petiron scribed what he considered the finalized melody line and lyrics.

He knew the final form of this score before Petiron did.

He knew more than that--he realized. He knew far more about the history of Pern than the eventual outcome of a single musical score.

Was he no longer in the Ninth Pass? Robinton supposed that would make more sense than Mother coming forward, and the room around him was decorated in the old style..."quaint" was the proper word for it, if looking at it from a Ninth Pass perspective, as he was.

After a while, when her song had died away, he finally spoke again. "What happened to me?" he asked.

"You don't remember?" she asked him.

"I was ill. What I remember makes no sort of logical _sense_." Which was true. And also a lie, of the "withholding information" kind, but he didn't see what good it would do to fret her when he was trying to untangle the truth himself.

She resettled herself as if it might take a while to answer. "Well...about two days ago, F'lon and Simanith landed in the courtyard with you and a woman in tow, yelling for a Healer. I heard the commotion, the entire Hall did in fact, Simanith nearly squished some of them with his hasty landing,"--she shook her head at this--"and when I realized you were here rather than at your station at Benden Hold and that F'lon had flown you _between_ here directly to the Healer Hall Healers I came to see you, and to make sure you were in one piece." She gave him a worried smile, and brushed his hair away from his forehead. "The Healers say you had a high fever, a sprained ankle, dehydration, burns to both sides of your body, a wound on your calf, and an older wound from your left hand to your right foot, like a burn but not quite. Burns, bruises, nicks, scrapes, rope burns around your wrists--" and here his mother seemed to realize her voice, despite her control, was inching slowly up higher and higher.

"I'm sorry," Robinton said. "I had no intention of frightening you."

She leaned closer and studied him, ghosting the outside of her fingers down his cheek, as even a light touch might do more damage. "I doubt you did this to yourself on _purpose_...but I don't know _how_ you got hurt like this, Robie, and to be honest, it's like a nightmare come to life. Nor does it help that F'lon and that women--Menolly--aren't telling us a thing. In fact, the Masterharper got the Benden Weyrleader involved, and F'lon still wouldn't tell us anything. He's been confined to the Weyr and I believe restricted rations, as he didn't have a scratch on him and refused a direct order to speak. The woman, Menolly, was wounded herself--burned and hurt on the calf, like you--and has stuck to your side like a burr. We have no clue where _she's_ from."

Now there was a proper mess; the two of them had kept mum, probably until they could speak to him and sort out their stories. "I've been asleep all this time?" he asked.

She sighed. "Not entirely; you've awoken in a delirium a few times. You thought thread was devouring you, and cried out for help. Did you get caught in a fire? There was soot on your pants when they were removed..."

Thread. He had been in Southern, during that other memory that sidled alongside the Landing memory as if the two had been laid down at the same time, and he'd been so out of his mind with sickness and pain he'd forgotten that thread might fall. Menolly had found him just in time to take out that scaled metal cloak and put it over them--he thought it must be a Seaholder trick, as he dimly recalled long compartments filled with similar linked-scale pieces on the large boat..._excuse me, ship,_ he apologized to Menolly in his mind...that had taken him to Southern when his health had failed.

He had been caught _outside_ in threadfall. In the open air, with no water, fire, or shelter. And Menolly had appeared out of nowhere, like a heroine, and had saved them both.

He felt a brief smile creep over his face before fading away. What had he ever done to deserve such a remarkable woman like her in his life? She was braver than any twenty men. Robinton felt his skin crawl as he remembered the sheer terror of feeling thread hit the protective garment, the pressure of something so deadly writhing just a finger away from his skin to sizzle in its death throes on the barren black rock.

It wasn't surprising that he might have raved about it afterwards, in a sick delirium. He remembered both of them clinging to one another underneath their thin protection, screaming involuntarily as the wretched abomination writhed against their sides, only a fingers' width away. Less than that, even.

_I almost killed us_, he remembered too. His addle-brained thought that it made a difference if she was protecting him, or he her. To think he'd believed he'd purged himself of such gender nonsense! And yet when push came to shove and he really, truly believed they were about to die he did something stupid out of chivalry. If he had stayed still, they wouldn't have had...

_Had_ thread hit them? On the leg? He remembered the pain stinging across his leg before her firelizards had charred it to ash.

Yes, he'd caused them to be scored.

Robinton drew away from his mother, and moved the furs off of his legs so he could see. Someone had undressed and washed him, so he was nude, and without any trousers in the way he could see the characteristic meandering line of threadscore on his calf.

His mother, too, looked on curiously, but he gave thanks to all that was good she didn't have any idea of what threadscore looked like. They probably thought he got caught on a sharp nail or ember or something...

_Perhaps I rescued Menolly--or she me--from a burning cothold. And then F'lon rescued us, saw my wounds, and brought me here. Of course, if we say that, if the Masterharper and Weyrleader are involved, they'll want to know which one, and that won't do at all. No, and that's too complicated, anyway. I'm not sure we can lie our way out of this mess...how long has it been since that Benden Gather and now? If I've been missing for a few months...or worse, if we came back _before_ we left..._

The more he thought about it, that seemed unlikely--his mother would have mentioned it, that they couldn't make the times line up, that wasn't something you left out by accident. Still, it almost seemed as if he had the choice of telling them the truth...unthinkable! Not to mention un_believ_able...

"Robinton?" his mother asked, her tone prompting since he'd been silent for so long.

"My memories...are so _strange_," he told her. Again: honesty. But the kind that led thoughts elsewhere. "I've been delirious?" he queried, to reinforce the seed of misinformation.

"Yes," she said. "The Healers suspect you've been ill with one of those diseases they get out in Ista, although how you would have picked up one of those in Benden is a mystery..."

"Where's Menolly?" he asked, wondering. And then--Menolly! She was _here_, in the days of his youth? Oh no. Oh that poor girl. Menolly had fought tooth and nail to be accepted as a Harper in her own right, and he knew without a doubt--if they refused to give his mother that consideration...even after she'd proven time and time again she was far more skilled than even most male Harpers...the unknown, unexpected Menolly, who was less comely and without the golden voice his mother possessed wouldn't be given a sliver of a chance. He'd campaigned for turns and turns, gnawing away at the Hall's superstitions and biases like a pest at the grain stores so that when Menolly finally _had_ appeared as the woman right for that quiet revolution, most Masters had given way to his desires with something akin to relief.

They had no such help here and now...were he to push for her rights like he had when Menolly had been a lass, they'd explain it away as him being hot-headed and young.

And it had to be difficult for her, to go from being pummeled by thread to a _when_ where thread itself was regarded a fantasy told to scare little ones. To be in the Hall, but not _home_. Why hadn't F'lon taken her right back? Had the Masterharper and Weyrleader gotten involved so quickly that F'lon hadn't been able to grab Menolly and go _between_?

...or had his plan been wrong _again_ and despite their little test at Benden Weyr, Simanith still couldn't navigate _between_ times effectively?

So much rode on a single dragon pair. Poor F'lon! Poor Simanith!

"Menolly," his mother answered, "is sleeping, in a guest room. As I said she attached herself to you like a particularly stubborn stick-burr, but she seems nice enough and genuinely concerned for your well-being. If she hadn't been so close-mouthed I would have thought perhaps you had found yourself a paramour, the way she's devoted to you. But I don't see why you would have given her cause to fear me..."

Para..._paramour_? Menolly and...and...oh no. Robinton felt his mind bounce around that thought and his self-imposed limits like a ball in a gaming table. He didn't feel like examining those thoughts at the moment, so he did the only other thing he could do (and always had done, when accused of inappropriate relationships in the past): he laughed. "Menolly and...oh, Mother!" It hurt to laugh, the skin on both sides of his ribs felt crisped, but he laughed anyway, as rich and full and amused as he could make it. "No, you assumed wrong there." And he leaned over to kiss his mother on the cheek. He couldn't help it; he was so used to covering up awkward situations with charm and grace and faced with this suspicion, he reverted to form, even if there was a good chance she'd give him the fish eye for it.

But the wheels in his head continued to turn...if Menolly ended up needing a protection of a sort, claiming her as his paramour _was_ a way he could protect her--they could pretend they were lovers. There was rank enough for a women who was associated with a Journeyman, it was a rank that could sustain a family even, not just a wife, and it was known that he was Master Gennel's right hand man when he was in the Hall, which she would benefit from. But there was something very _wrong_ to it as well...he knew, he _knew_ she'd agree if he in all seriousness proposed that charade to her as a temporary compromise and for her safety, she'd tell herself that he meant nothing by it, but it still would hurt her. It would hurt her so much, to see others assume while he kept her at arm's reach in private. He couldn't fool himself into thinking she was indifferent to him.

He couldn't do that to her. He was not yet so manipulating, not yet so callous.

They'd find something for her to do, here. Maybe she _could_ Sing. He doubted as a soloist...while her musical talent was immaculate, her voice was and always would be folksy. She could be a choir leader, perhaps. She wasn't quite pretty enough to be a lady's musician and companion, however, nor would they be able to prove her blood ties to Half-Circle Sea Hold as to make her a "suitable" companion for a lady of noble blood.

It angered him all over again, that Menolly would be denied her greatest talent and love out of _tradition_. He hoped F'lon would find out a way to get her home soon, because he wasn't sure there were any comfortable long-term plans that didn't involve her fighting that same difficult fight once more. Nor did he want her to vanish into the mists of time--Sebell, Piemur, everyone in the Ninth Pass would be distressed at having lost her. "Where is Menolly's guest room?" Robinton asked, starting to climb out of bed. He was sore and ravenous, but his mind was clear, and he would feel stronger if he was up and about.

"Nobody's going to believe that laugh of yours if you sneak into her room in the middle of the night," his mother pointed out.

"She...saved my life," Robinton said. "Or at least, I'm fairly sure she saved my life. It's night?" he added, belatedly.

"A few hours before midnight." Then she relented and told him which guest room Menolly was in. "Are you feeling well? You shouldn't tire yourself--you _were_ very sick for most of the two days you've been here."

"I'm hungry," he admitted. "Where are my pants?"

She blinked at him, slowly, and he wondered what he had done wrong, but then she got up and assisted him in finding his pants. "Are pockets on the bum a new style?" she asked, handing him a pair that had no rear pockets.

"I don't know, I just wore what the Tailor had in my size." He pulled on the trousers she gave him, and also the shirt, being careful of his weak ankle.

She traced the aging mark on his back where the lightning had struck him. "This is horrible," she said.

He didn't reply; he wasn't sure how to explain that one to her. "Do I have a shirt?" He found the shirt for himself, and pulled it on. "Are the kitchens or Menolly's guestroom closer?" he asked.

"The guestroom," his mother replied. "Don't worry about the kitchens, I will go get you something."

"Thank you, mother," he said, and kissed her cheek again.

"Let me know when you decide to tell me the truth, yes? You're as close-lipped as they are, you're just prettier about it."

He hung his head, repentant, just a little bit. "Let me...figure out what _I_ know first," he said. "Some things that my head insists are real are more like what might come out of seeing a play while as sodden as a fish in water."

"Hmm. Well figure it out quickly, my love, because Masterharper Gennel would like to talk with you, as much as I do if not more." And she gave him her own kiss, and left for the kitchens.

Robinton headed for Menolly, as quick through the empty, dark corridors between the Healer Hall and the Harper Hall as his limping ankle let him. At least it was on the same food he'd hurt before. But the closer he came, the more a certain thought weighed on him...

...as much as he wanted to confide in her...he was _dead_. Or that is, the Robinton she had known was dead. It was strange, how a fact of little passion or note to his invulnerable-seeming younger self--death--suddenly loomed so significantly in his mind now that it seemed that he was a Robinton who remembered things both forward and back in his timeline. If he spoke to her like...like he was _himself_...when he was going to try to just get F'lon to send her back, would that be kind? Or would it be a cruelty? Now that he searched his memory, he remembered the strange way both she and Sebell had reacted to him, and that was a him that had never known them. Now, _now_ he was truly a _ghost_...someone she had had to _mourn_, as much as he would have mourned for her, or Sebell, or Piemur if any of them had passed away unexpectedly.

He had been...prepared, in a ways, for his mother. Even though his older self felt an ache upon seeing her, the younger self identified her as calmly as he might identify Piemur's spouse Jancis. His mother, just like he'd seen her the previous day. Not "his mother, who had been dead for forty turns".

Robinton stopped just outside Menolly's door, contemplating the idea that he had _died_. Had this happened after AIVAIS had shut himself down, or did his strange two-fold memory just leave off there for no good reason? He had made his peace with death once it became clear that his body was failing him more and more often...and when it became clear that he had enemies who might hasten the process. But he'd never given thought to...waking up...after the fact.

_Nobody plans to wake up after death, old man. And yet you're here._

How would Menolly react?

No. If, if she was to be here however long it took F'lon to get over his penance, it made no sense to make him "die" to her again as she went forward and he remained in the past. It was unnecessary, it would be _cruel_. He couldn't tell her.

So, then, he would be Journeyman Robinton to her...the silly young man who had unintentionally appeared one night in her Hall, whom she had been helping to get home.

Well, he _was_ home now. For harmonies of "home" meaning his body was in the right _when_. So it was his duty to get her back to her own. He would thank her for saving his life, for doing so much for him--more than a humble Harper Journeyman could ever hope to have had. That was the types of things they would discuss.

He wouldn't mention that he remembered the day that they had met, on the Hatching Grounds of Benden Weyr, where he had hefted her over his shoulder to prevent her from burning her battered feet on the sands. And he wouldn't mention that he now knew why everyone had been so upset to find a young Journeyman Harper unexpectedly in their _when_.

Sometimes, Robinton wished he wasn't a very good actor.

#

Menolly almost didn't hear the polite scratching at her door--in fact, her sleeping mind interpreted it as one of her firelizards getting into something, until she remembered the great effort she had gone to to command that they all stay away from the Hall and out of sight, lest people learn about the lovely creatures before they were due to. So she rose from her empty, firelizard-less bed, clad in a shift, and answered her door.

Robinton. Robinton! Before she could scold him for being on his feet--her own thread-scored calf was giving her trouble--he spoke, his tone meek.

"I apologize if I awoke you, Mas--"

She stopped his words with her hand to his mouth, then stuck her head out of her room to see if anyone had observed his blunder. Luckily, nobody had, so she motioned at him to enter.

Robinton stepped in, his posture indicating he wasn't sure of his welcome despite her gestures. She closed the door behind him and opened a few more glows so they could see better. "I hope I didn't wake you," he began again.

"No, no, it's fine. Although _you_ are not--sit!"

He sat gingerly on the edge of her bed.

She studied him. He looked gamy and thin, worn through by the illness he had picked up. He needed to wash his hair; his illness had left it greasy and lank. However, he'd also recovered a large dose of respect that hadn't quite been so evident before--he wasn't nearly as cocky. Perhaps it was the lack of F'lon, or perhaps his entire misadventure into her time and back had finally gotten to him. Or maybe he just didn't feel as free in his own time when he'd have to live with the consequences. She _hoped_ it wasn't an after-effect of...whatever had been done to him when he'd been kidnapped. She still had to discover what had happened then. "Are you feeling all right?"

The Journeyman seemed to think about it. "I'm vertical. And awake. I wanted to thank you for saving my life." He looked directly at her and held her eyes. "_Thank_ you."

Menolly shook her head. "It was nothing--"

"My life?" He smiled then, quick and blinding, a flash of charm appearing from beneath the grungy exterior. It startled her. "I'd respectfully disagree there--it's _everything_ to _me_!" Then his smile faded. "But you're still in my time..." Here, he looked uncertain again, and worried.

"We got here accidentally," Menolly said. "And Simanith can't find his way back."

"Well...you...he _tried_, right?"

"Yes," Menolly said. Right after they'd gotten Robinton carried into the Healer Hall, and his mother Merelan had appeared, they'd gone back and tried to return. Twice. Poor F'lon and Simanith had been beside themselves--Menolly could have sworn F'lon was nearly in tears and Simanith's eyes had been a strange, off-shade, and he had warbled a tenor note of apology in his throat which reverberated between their legs. "We were all under a lot of stress; we decided to wait until you awoke to attempt anything more. Also, I wanted to know what happened to you."

"Yes...I...I've been thinking about what I remembered since I woke up. I'm afraid it's all very jumbled and delusional. I nearly got us killed, when I rolled us over...I was thinking...I was thinking...well, that's the point, actually. I _wasn't_ thinking, my thoughts were warped by fever. I was hallucinating--"

Menolly reached out and touched his arm gently. "We have time," she said, with more than a little wryness mixed into her comforting tone. "If you could take some moments to sort through it when you're feeling better, I would appreciate it. Even if you never see the people who went after you again, I'll still need to know what you know before I return."

"Of course, Master Menolly."

"Are there female Masters in your time?" Menolly asked, despite knowing the answer.

Robinton closed his eyes. "My mother...she _should_ be...but no, there's not. None...official. My mother is treated like one often enough, but it's only because of her voice. There's a better than even chance once she grows old and gray they'll begin lavishing the next diva with everything she could desire and let my mother rot." He opened his eyes. "Petiron--" He seemed to change his mind about what he was going to say mid-sentence. Then he sighed. "What shall I call you?" he asked.

"My name will do. Nobody expects girls to have a Craft," she said with a slight twist to her mouth. Then she copied his sigh. "You need to go back to sleep. It's around midnight. Have you eaten?" She rose to begin ordering him around for his own well being.

Robinton meekly obeyed, which pointed to how young he was, or how ill, and let her shepherd him back to his bed in the Healer Hall.


	21. Intermission

**Intermission**

They broked this site :(

Since there's no status update on the front page of fanfiction dot net, and because I'm getting **intensely** frustrated, I figured I'd update my stories to let you guys know that this site has been broken since March 21st, 2011.

**Things that are broken with ff dot net:**

- Notification emails. It's definitely broken for gmail. It may be broken for other email providers. The notification emails take DAYS to arrive when A) a story is updated, B) a story is reviewed, C) a story is favorited/put on alert/etc, D) a PM is received. Literally. Days. Yet my gmail thinks the day it arrives is the day it was sent, which points to a severe email queue backup problem here. Their email servers are choking for some reason.

I'm tearing my hair out over this. Hatehatehate email notifications being down, as the only other way to notice is to memorize the numbers on the statistics page and notice when they change.

- Large fandoms are reporting the only way to update or post a new a fanfic is to do a hack-ish work around. This doesn't affect Dragonriders of Pern so far, but it affects larger fandoms as far as I've heard, so if you're wondering why certain categories haven't been updated, this is why.

I've sent an email to the site support, but they're a 1 or 2 man show, and given this site isn't exactly a money-maker they don't show much interest in righting things quickly or even giving an update on the front page. I don't doubt my email is one out of hundreds that was sent to them. I see no reason for them to answer mine soon or at all if they haven't responded to the others.

**Enter AO3**

So. I'm peddling a better universal fanfic site. I am in the process of getting my entire archive up on Archive of Our Own (also known as AO3). If you go to my profile on this site, you can click on the link to go directly there. (Chapters like this one strip out links and URLs else I'd put a link right here for you.)

**Why I prefer AO3: **

- _No ads_

- _Nicer layout_

- _Very robust tags._ Just finish a surprisingly good Jaxom/Lessa fic? (hehe) If the author used the Jaxom/Lessa tag, you can just click on it and find more.

- _The ratings/warnings system is more nuanced._ You have the normal G to Mature thing, but you can also give warnings for slash, kinks, and other things folks may want to be warned about. For example, my story Weyrbred Lads has a blue icon in the upper right, indicating a male/male relationship.

- _The crossover system just works better._ I can put The Day Benden Went to War in both Dragonriders of Pern and Talent categories without being afraid I'm missing all the Pern People that don't browse crossovers.

- _The co-author thing (although I don't use it as an author, only as a reader) works better._ You get direct links to each other's pages.

- If an author wrote a story as a part of a challenge, or for a specific recipient, you can go to that person's profile right from the story. (The one that received the fic.)

- _You can "like" a story without needing to comment._ If you want folks to know you liked a story, but you don't have a specific comment, you can leave kudos.

- _Comments are threaded._ You can respond to someone else's comment. As a reader OR as an author. I respond to comments on AO3!

AO3 is currently in Beta. Some of the functionality that THIS site already has is in the future roadmap to be implemented on AO3. To join you can sign up and wait for the queue to pop (it can take few weeks wait until you get your invite), or you can get an instant invite from someone you know. I don't currently have invites, but I'm trying to get my hands on some. **But you can read and review without having an account.**

**Twitter:**

I've joined Twitter as dmdomini . Link in my profile. I'll tweet fanfic updates as I make them.


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